TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

Sooitg fcg lEmtl ILubtof

BISMARCK

ON MEDITERRANEAN SHORES

LINCOLN

SCHUEMANN

GIFTS OF LIFE

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

J

t*\ n ^

B. Mussolini to Emil Ludwig

in memory of the conversations at the Palazzo Venezia
during March and April, 1932 Anno X

TALKS WITH
MUSSOLINI

BY EMIL
LUDWIG

Translated from the German by
EDEN *nf CEDAR PAUL

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
BOSTON 1933

GESPRACHE MIT EMIL LUDWIG
First published in Germany in 1932

Copyright,
BY PAUL ZSOLNAY VERLAG, A. G. BERLIN, WIEN, LEIPZIG

Copyright, 1933,

BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

All rights reserved
Published January, 1933

PRINTED IN THE tTNITBD STATES OP AMERICA

To act is easy, but to think is difficult; and
to guide our actions by thought is irksome.

WILHELM MEISTER

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 3

PART ONE
The Training of a Ruler

THE SCHOOL OF POVERTY 35

THE SCHOOL OF THE SOLDIER AND THE

JOURNALIST 41

THE SCHOOL OF HISTORY 51

PART TWO
Metamorphoses

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM 65

CAUSES OF THE WAR 77

ON THE ROAD TO POWER 87

PART THREE
The Problems of Power

THE MANAGEMENT OF MEN 99

INFLUENCING THE MASSES 115

THE DANGERS OF DICTATORSHIP 129

vii

CONTENTS

PART FOUR
The Regions of Power

EUROPE 141

FOREIGN LANDS 149

HOME DEVELOPMENT 165

ROME AND THE CHURCH 175

PART FIVE
Genius and Character

ACTION AND REFLECTION 185

PRIDE AND ACTION 199

ART 211

LONELINESS AND DESTINY 221

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

DOCUMENTATION

J_ HE following conversations took place in the
Palazzo di Venezia at Rome, being held almost daily
for an hour at a time between March 23 and April
4, 1932, both dates inclusive. We talked Italian and
each conversation was recorded by me in German
as soon as it was finished. Only a few sentences from
earlier conversations have been introduced into this
book. The German manuscript was submitted to
Mussolini, who checked the passages in which his
own utterances were recorded.

No material other than the before-mentioned has
been incorporated, but I have to acknowledge my
indebtedness to Margherita Sarf atti for a good many
hints conveyed to me in her biography. I have made
no use of the numberless anecdotes current in
Rome; and I have ignored the reports of Mussolini's
collaborators, informative though these are. In a
word, the talks consist of what actually passed in
conversation between Mussolini and myself.

3

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

CONCERNING POLITICAL PARTIES

Mistrust of the Dictator had been active in me
for five years. Many of my Italian friends were hos-
tile to his regime. Whenever I visited Italy I noted
the omnipresence of uniforms, flags, and emblems
whose sun was setting in Germany, though when I
looked eastward they seemed to be dawning once
again with terrific speed.

Three circumstances combined to modify my
outlook. First of all, the foundations of "democ-
racy" and "parliamentarism" are crumbling. Inter-
mediate types are manifesting themselves; the tradi-
tional forms of political life have been undermined;
there is a scarcity of men of mark. Secondly, both
in Moscow and in Rome, I perceived that very
remarkable things were being achieved upon the
material plane, with the result that I came to recog-
nise the constructive side of these two dictatorships.
In the third place, psychological considerations led
me to assume that the Roman statesman, notwith-
standing the bellicose tenor of many of his speeches,
was probably far from inclined to cherish plans of
war.

But my own observations of Mussolini's personal-
ity had an even stronger effect upon my mind than

4

INTRODUCTION

the foregoing considerations. As soon as I had been
led (so I believed) to recognise in him certain traits
which reminded me of Nietzsche's teachings, the
man seemed to become detached from his movement
and I began to regard him as a phenomenon apart,
as is my custom with men who play a part in history.
The smile of practical politicians disturbs me as
little as the animus of partisans in my own immedi-
ate circle. To me a man's most insignificant charac-
ter trait is more important than the longest of his
speeches; and when I am forming a judgment con-
cerning an omnipotent statesman, every such trait
assists me to forecast his actions. Politics of the day
and party programs, the two forms in which un-
imaginative men contemplate the present, are of
little interest to me. I have never belonged to any
political party, and the only such party of which
I could become a member would be an anti-war
party, if such a party existed. The events of the last
decade have convinced me that no system is abso-
lutely the best, but that different nations at different
times need different systems of government. Since
I am before all an individualist, I could never have
become a Fascist; and yet I do not fail to recognise
that the Fascist movement has done great things
for Italy. Transplanted to Germany, on the other

5

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

hand, I think Fascism would be likely to prove dis-
astrous, for reasons that will be touched upon in
Part Four of these conversations. Besides, on the
German stage there is no star performer competent
to play the part of Fascist leader.

It was easier for me to be an unbiased observer of
Italian affairs because I was a foreigner. Had I been
a French writer in the days of Napoleon, I should
probably have stood aloof like Chateaubriand,
whereas in those days as a German I should, like
Goethe, have been filled with admiration for the
Emperor. In like manner, Mussolini's figure im-
presses and attracts me, independently of party con-
siderations, and regardless of the conflicting facts
that, while declaring himself an opponent of the
Treaty of Versailles he has Italianised southern Ty-
rol. The German Fascists find themselves in a
dilemma when contemplating these inconsistencies;
but my withers are unwrung, for I am content with
the artistic observation of a remarkable personality.

OUR FIRST MEETING

It became plain to me at our first encounter that
Mussolini's personality was an extremely remark-
able one. In the spring of 1929, 1 made advances to
him at the time when Italian capitalists began to

6

INTRODUCTION

regard him with disfavour and when his foreign pol-
icy became less provocative than before. During
March of that year I had two conversations with
him and subsequently I saw him again. On each
occasion I was forearmed and turned the discussion
towards the two questions concerning which we
were decisively at odds, namely liberty and Fascism.
In these interviews there speedily became manifest
the cleavage between Fascist orthodoxy and the
views of the founder of the faith a cleavage
which is characteristic of every great movement.
Furthermore, I was strengthened in the conviction
derived from previous experiences that in historical
analysis more stress must be laid on the spoken word
than on the written. In conversation a man discloses
himself more freely than on paper with a pen, espe-
cially when he is as little inclined to pose as Musso-
lini for in this respect the photographers ought
to have uneasy consciences because they have sent
forth a caricature into the world.

Already in these first interviews, I was less con-
cerned to discover what Italy thought of its leader
and what the leader's attitude was towards the Ital-
ians than to ascertain what Europe had to expect
from Mussolini, who is wholly irresponsible, and
therefore the most powerful man living in the world

7

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

to-day. Was he going to be a source o unrest or
predominantly a constructive factor? He had been
a disciple of Nietzsche, had been an anarchist and a
revolutionist. Would his demon continue to impel
him along the path he had entered in youth? On the
other hand, having risen to power, would it be his
main object to consolidate that power for personal
ends? Was he likely to spiritualise Nietzsche's doc-
trines or to use them as a means for self -inflation?

Out of these conversations upon the science and
art of government originated a design to elaborate
them systematically, to develop methodically what
had been primarily a free interchange of ideas. The
balloon drifting hither and thither at the mercy of
the winds was to become an airplane steering a defi-
nite course. At the same time, its flight was to be
lofty and unconstrained. No secretary was present
to take notes; no demand was made for the revision
of a manuscript report; it was all a matter of per-
sonal confidence.

SETTING OF THE CONVERSATIONS

The Palazzo di Venezia is in the great square
(Piazza di Venezia) in the middle of Rome, at the
foot of the Capitoline Hill. Built of yellowish-
brown stone, resembling a medieval fortress with a

8

INTRODUCTION

squat tower, the massive structure stands to the
right of a huge modern monument in white marble,
which is out of keeping with its surroundings and
will need a century or more to acquire an incrusta-
tion which will make it tolerably harmonious. The
palace, five centuries old, has passed through many
hands. Built by the popes, in the seventeenth cen-
tury it was ceded to the republic of Venice, from
which in due course it was taken over by the imperial
house of Austria. A hundred years later, in 1915,
the kingdom of Italy took it back from the Habs-
burgs. Thus popes, kings, and condottieri have
successively ruled in this palace, which in massive-
ness, size, and the thickness of its walls probably
excels every other palace in Rome. Beyond question
as regards the spaciousness of its halls it transcends
them all.

The great folding doors stand open day and night,
but in front of them two militiamen are on guard,
and there is a tall porter in a silver-laced uniform
to ask your business when you wish to enter. Still,
it is easy enough to gain admittance, seeing that in
the mezzanine there is an archaeological library for
which a reader's ticket can readily be procured. A
man who made an attempt on Mussolini's life was
furnished with such a card. In tije evenings I saw

9

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

a great many young men at work consulting the
catalogues. Upon the entresol there is an iron gate
to bar the staircase, but this was not always closed.
The Puce spends about ten hours a day in these
headquarters of his, and it certainly cannot be said
that lie shuts himself away from the common herd
after the manner of kings.

On the first floor there are half a dozen rooms,
large and small, which have been tastefully refur-
nished. The floors are tiled as of old. Above are heavy
beams, ancient and grimy. As in every Roman pal-
ace, the windows with their stone window seats
are the finest features of the interior. The vast halls
are empty, with nothing more than a ponderous
table of ancient date occupying the middle of each,
and chairs which no one uses ranged round the walls.
On these latter, distempered in orange or dull'
blue, hang pictures: Madonnas, portraits, land-
scapes by Veronese and Mainardi. Here and there
are frescoes which may or may not be the work of
Raphael.

There are glass-fronted cupboards, too, lighted
from within, containing precious majolicas dating
back to the thirteenth century, bejewelled images of
the Blessed Virgin, priestly vestments, lace, and
carven figures of the saints. A Byzantine chest made

10

INTRODUCTION

of ivory is said to be more than a thousand years old.
As one looks at the smoked glassware from Murano,
at greenish-gold bowls and goblets, and one's eye
turns then to measure the thickness of the walls as
displayed in the window recesses, one cannot but
think of the gaily clad women whom the lords of
this fortress, masters of many halberds and many
spears, used to capture and cage within it until,
perhaps, wearying of the splendid prison, they took
vengeance by poisoning the condottieri who had
carried them off. Weapons and armour, likewise, are
part of the furnishing of this old-world palace:
headless knights menacing of aspect, figures having
a greyish-blue sheen like that of the sky just before
a thunderstorm. In front of these empty shells is a
huge chest containing swords and daggers; and be-
' side the huge weapons with which bears were hunted
lies the richly chased sword of justice.

If the visitor is to be admitted to the presence,
the chief among the attendants ushers him to the
great inner doors. This man ranks as a "cavaliere"
and is a figure of comic opera. But when the doors
are flung open it is to disclose that which makes us
feel we are contemplating a landscape rather than
the interior of a room.

This place in which Mussolini has carried on his

11

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

work for several years now, its^windows giving on
the Piazza di Venezia, is known as the Hall of the
Mappa Mundi, for it was here that in former days
the first of all terrestrial globes was installed. The
room was built in the middle of the fifteenth cen-
tury and, having Become ruinous, has recently been
restored. It is m.Qe than-sixty feet long, forty feet
wide, and forty Jfeet_ .high- There are two doors in
the party wall leading into the anteroom, and from
this one door opens into the great hall. Here we
see a long wall interrupted by three gigantic win-
dows with stone , window seats beneath, while the
opposite wall is punctuated by painted columns.
The place seems to be absolutely empty, containing *
neither tables nor chairs, not even chairs placed
along the walls; in the corners are tall torches with
gilded flames, nowadays the standards for electric
lights. In the far distance, so far away that we feel
the need for a field glass, we see in silhouette the face
of a man seated at a table, writing.

Entering this great hall, the first thing that strikes
us is the richly decorated ceiling which bears in re-
lief the lion of Saint Mark and the she- wolf of Rome.
Halfway along the wall facing the windows are
displayed the arms of the three popes who built the
palace. Advancing across the renovated flooring, we

12

INTRODUCTION

come, in the centre of the room, to a nearly life-sized
mosaic of nude women and children, bearing fruit;
this is the Abundanzia, and I always made a detour
k to avoid treading on it. At length, in the remotest

"""*lHi

Corner, we reached*a table about twelve feet long,
standing upon a carpet and flanked by two Savona-
rola chairs. lose by these, against the wall, stands a
tall reading desk on which lies a modern atlas. This
was open to show the map of Europe. Adjoining the
other end of the table is an enormous fireplace, cold
as the marble which encompasses it.

Behind the table, facing the windows, sits Musso-
lini; rising, however, and advancing to meet a visitor
from abroad. His writing table is in the meticulous
.order of the strenuous worker. Since he clears up
everything from day to day and tolerates no rem-
nants, one small portfolio suffices to hold everything
that relates to current affairs. Behind him, on an
occasional table, are books actually in use, and we
notice three telephones. The table is plain and un-
adorned, bearing no more than a bronze lion and
writing materials arranged with precision. The im-
pression produced by the worktable, like the impres-
sion produced by the great hall, is that of composure
the composure of a man whose experiences have
been multifarious.

13

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

THE CONVERSATIONS

Our conversations took place evening after eve-
ning across this table. The reader must understand
that their fundamental theme is not so much the
burning questions we discussed as the character of
Mussolini which, in its manifold facets, I was en-
deavouring to grasp. The following pages, therefore,
are not Platonic dialogues in which this subject or
that is exhaustively dealt with. Nevertheless, the
nature of our talks is based upon the polarity of
the interlocutors. I had devoted much time and
thought to the question how I could best confront
my own views with his, how I could most effectively
induce him to speak frankly and freely while avoid-
ing the danger of entering into one of those pon-
derous "disputations" which are fatal to conversa-
tion in any true sense of the term. He knew that
upon two matters of primary importance I was
radically opposed to him and that there was no likeli-
hood of my coming over into his camp; but this very
fact may have been a stimulus. Furthermore, I was
inclined to stress my opposition in the hope of mak-
ing him more emphatic and lucid in his rejoinders.
Yet I had to avoid a contradictiousness which would
have made our conversations interminable; and,

14

INTRODUCTION

since he had put no restriction upon the number of
our interviews, I felt it incumbent upon me to avoid
wasting his time. Besides, I find it more congenial
to leave my readers untrammelled. Let each come
to his own conclusion regarding the questions
mooted in this book a conclusion which will vary
in accordance with his general principles and will
lead perhaps to one side in one topic and to another
side in another. The result of this method of ap-
proach is that in my talks with Mussolini neither
of us will be found "to get the best of it" without
qualification. Problems are formulated, not solved.
For me, the dictator of Italy has become a histori-
cal figure, and, since he let me follow my own bent,
I questioned him as I have been accustomed to ques-
tion other historical figures. In this matter I can
make no difference between the living and the dead.
When I shook hands with Edison it was with the
feeling "This is Archimedes!" With Napoleon I
had, in imagination, held a hundred long conversa-
tions before I took up my pen to describe the Em-
peror. In Mussolini's case, certainly, the antithesis
was more conspicuous. We might well regard these
conversations as a dialogue between a fully armed
Reason of State and a Pacifist Individualism. The
contrasts between us are extensive, and even his edu-

15

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

cation has been very different from mine. Our point
of contact is Nietzsche, whose name cropped up
more often in the actual talks than in their con-
densed reproduction.

"What I was studying was the man's character in
the widest sense of the term. Since, however, I have
had no private documents available for the purposes
of this study, and since in actual conversation with
a living man I could learn far less of his intimate
life than I could learn of the intimate life of Bis-
marck or of Lincoln by the perusal of their letters,
I have been restricted to such an impressionist pic-
ture as can be achieved on the basis of talks concern-
ing purely abstract matters. This book is an attempt
at indirect portraiture. One who regards as trifling
the question what kind of music a statesman loves
has failed to understand the art of mental analysis,
for in truth such matters exert a decisive influence
upon action. Owing to the world's ignorance of
Bismarck's inner life, there had become current a
distorted picture of him as a swashbuckling cav-
alry officer, and it was this picture which I endeav-
oured to replace by a new one. In Mussolini's case
I am trying to do the same thing while the man yet
lives, in order to substitute a new picture for the
views and the trends of the contemporary world.

16

INTRODUCTION

In my undertaking I had to confine myself to the
man of fifty or thereabouts who sat opposite me.
If, occasionally, I delved into his past, this was not
done in order to disclose the contradictions which
must necessarily manifest themselves between the
ages of forty and fifty in a person who is playing a
notable part in the world, nor was it done in order
to study the individual of those earlier days, since
'for this a biography would have been requisite.
According to my conviction that each man's des-
tiny has a logic of its own, no biography can be writ-
ten of one who is still in the third act of his life
drama. No, my aim has been, over and above -de-
scribing the personality of Mussolini, to character-
ise the man of action in general, and to show once
again how closely akin are the poet and the states-
man.

But the following conversations, be they devoted
to political, historical, or moral topics, still remain
conversations on the psychological plane. Even
when concrete questions are put and answered, the
underlying aim is invariably to emphasise the dis-
tinctive traits of the central figure. It will be futile
for the reader to look for sensationalism. The sub-
lime calm of Mussolini and the august serenity of
the great hall gave our converse an extremely serious

17

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

tone. One who wishes to take soundings of the sea
must not attempt to do so during a storm. My own
independence and the indulgence of him whom I
questioned left me perfectly free to ask whatever
I would and, for this very reason, imposed dis-
cretion.

I was dealing with a lion, mighty but high-strung
and nervous. I had to keep him in a good mood and
to make sure that he would never feel bored. When
thorny questions came up for discussion, I found it
expedient to make historical detours, to assume a
theoretical tone, leaving it to Mussolini to decide
whether he would consider the problem exhaus-
tively. At the same time, I had to drive at a speed
of a hundred miles an hour in order, in the short
time allotted, to get to the end of my program. Let
me confess that the tension of these hours of con-
verse in a foreign tongue induced great fatigue. I
venture to hope that Mussolini, too, was perhaps
a little tired! For my part, anyhow, I came home
each day like a sportsman who has fired many shots,
but does not know how successful he has been until
he empties his game bag.

During our talks, no superfluous word was ut-
tered. Courteously but firmly, Mussolini dismissed
me when the hour was up, to resume the thread of

18

INTRODUCTION

our discourse punctually on the following day. We
were never interrupted by telephone calls or by im-
portunate messengers. Owing to this lack of any
kind of disturbance, there prevailed in the great hall
a tranquillity such as, in general, can only be
achieved late at night, when two friends meet for
intimate conversation. In earlier centuries, one may
suppose, the hall must have been lively with music
and dancing, a place where intrigues were con-
cocted in the window seats, and where flattery
was rife. Kings and lords must have paraded their
glories here, but when they wished for serious con-
versation they must have withdrawn to smaller
rooms, since the hall was only used on great occa-
sions. For the last three years, however, forty-two
millions of human beings have been ruled from this
centre. The spirits of the popes whose coats of arms
adorned the walls, and those of the lion and the she-
wolf on the ceiling, may have listened with wonder
to our opening talks, to return, after a while, to a
slumber which has been undisturbed for centuries.

REPRODUCTION

After each conversation my first task was to re-
cord it as faithfully as possible and without addi-
tions. I compressed rather than expanded, and was

19

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

careful to avoid any kind of staginess (to which
Fascism has been unduly prone)* I was particularly
attracted by the indirect form of characterisation,
otie lying intermediate between my dramatic and
my biographical work.

I retained, however, the lively conversational
form, although the subsequent introduction of
headlines has emphasised the opening of each new
topic. I had in mind something like Goethe's conver-
sations with Luden, the longest Goethe conversa-
tion which has come down to us, and one of the fin-
est, because it has not been touched up after the
manner of Eckermann, and because the dissent and
the memory of the lesser interlocutor have engen-
dered and preserved a remarkable freshness. Con-
sequently I have not drawn a picture of the man,
for this would rob the conversation of its chief con-
tent. The reader must limn that picture for him-
self.

Secondly, it was incumbent upon me to remain as
far as possible in the background, since my readers
want to hear Mussolini's views and not mine, and I
have plenty of other opportunities of setting forth
my opinions. The last thing I wished was to argue
with him in order to maintain my own point of
view, my essential aim being to disclose to the world

20

INTRODUCTION

for the first time the man of action as a thinker and
to reveal the connection between his activities and
his thoughts. This seems to me eminently desirable
because the arrogance of those who are shut out
from the world of action and the folly of the masses
have combined to diffuse the erroneous belief that
the man of action thinks as little as the man of
study acts. In these conversations the historian of
future days may find grounds for confirming what
Roederer revealed in the matter of the First Consul.
Roederer records a great many arguments showing
how the Corsican came to decide upon his actions
and what he thought about them such thoughts
being more important for our knowledge of the
human heart than any action can be.

I was in a very different position from Eckermann
and from other memorialists of his kidney. Such
men spent year after year in close intercourse with
the persons whose conversations they recorded and
noted down what was spontaneously uttered. My
talks with Mussolini were for an hour a day upon
a few successive days and I had to provide the stim-
ulus for what he said instead of being merely re-
ceptive.

Since his chief interest is in Fascism, and my chief
interest is in the problem of war and peace, neither

21

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

of these matters emerges as a special topic, but they
run as red threads through all the Mussolini con-
versations.

Naturally, each one of my readers will find this
or that subject missing from our talks. Young men
who aspire to become dictators will vainly seek for
any hints as to how they may become condottieri.
As for those who want a detailed account of Fas-
cism, I can only refer them to the treatises of ex-
perts, who exhaust the topic and their readers like-
wise. Ladies, or some of them maybe, are likely to
complain because nothing is said about the love af-
fairs of the hero; or they will at least want to know
something about his manner of life. Rigid Social-
ists will underline the passages in which, as a histo-
rian in the judgment seat, I ought to have con-
fronted Mussolini with the evidence of his apostasy.
German professors of history will contemptuously
disniiss a work wherein "matters of the gravest im-
port are discussed in a light conversational tone"
and will complain bitterly because I have not given
chapter and verse for certain sentences quoted by
me from Mussolini's speeches. The phenomenologists
will be extremely angry with me because I do not
use their jargon and have therefore made difficult
questions intelligible to the ordinary reader. No

22

INTRODUCTION

doubt every one will complain that great oppor-
tunities have been scandalously missed.

MY PARTNER IN THE DIALOGUE

For twenty-five years I had, from a distance, been
studying the man of action and had been trying to
depict him, dramatically, historically, and psycho-
logically. Now he sat facing me across a table. The
condottiere Cesare Borgia, whom I had once por-
trayed in a Roman palace, the hero of the Romagna,
seemed to have been resurrected, though he wore a
dark lounge suit and a black necktie, and the tele-
phone gleamed between us. In this same hall men of
his sort had triumphed and had fallen; now I faced
their successor, Italian through and through, wholly
a man of the Renaissance. To begin with, I was con-
founded by the feeling of so strange a resemblance.

Yet my man of action had assumed the most pas-
sive role conceivable. He who for ten years had al-
ways been in command had at length consented to
answer another's questions. I had merely submitted
to him an outline sketch of the topics I wanted to
discuss. His entire self-confidence was manifested
in the patience with which he listened to and an-
swered the most difficult questions, and in the lack
of any attempt to guide the conversation towards

23

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

ends chosen by himself. Not once, moreover, did he
stipulate that a reply must be regarded as confiden-
tial, so that the deletions he thought it expedient
to make in my record of our talks were trifling.

For all his outward equanimity, he was perpetu-
ally on the alert. It must be remembered that I knew
what I was going to ask him, whereas he was taken
unprepared; (and since my questions seldom re-
lated to matters concerning which ordinary inter-
viewers must have asked him, but dealt with feel-
ings, self-knowledge, and motives, he had instantly
to look within for an answer, to formulate it
promptly, and to phrase it after the manner in
which he would like to make his private thoughts
known to the world. Nevertheless in his amazing
mastery of thought and speech he seemed entirely
unaffected, having no inclination either to use su-
perlatives or to raise his voice. He was good-
humoured in face of my scepticism and did not
make a single answer which seemed directed toward
the vast crowd of his admirers. Not once did he use
what might have been regarded as an appropriate
Fascist catchword. A dozen times he could have
coined some "Napoleonic" rejoinder for the benefit
of the contemporary world and of posterity, but
the reader will not find so many as three in these

24

INTRODUCTION

conversations. To about four hundred questions he
replied with the same imperturbable repose. To one
only which, perhaps, I should never have asked, and
which is not recorded in these pages, he responded
silently with a glance which implied: "You know
quite well that I have nothing to say about that!"

I knew, of course, well enough when he was reti-
cent. Men of action talk about the realities of power
with as much discretion as the husband of a beauti-
ful woman shows when he speaks of her charms;
they only describe what all the world can see. Still,
his reserves, and the manner of them, gave me much
insight into his character. Furthermore, this reti-
cence, these reserves, related exclusively to the fu-
ture. He never tried to twist or to conceal the
utterances of his Socialist days, but always frankly
acknowledged them. Nor did he ever try to em-
barrass me by the argumentum ad hominem, by ask-
ing me, "What would you have done in such a case?"
Rarely, indeed, did he reply in the interrogative
form, speaking affirmatively, briefly, and to the
point.

He loves simplicity of speech and has no taste for
sparkling epigrams, with the result that the more
concise among his answers sound like abrupt deci-
sions. His style, in conversation at any rate, observes

25

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

the true Italian mean between French and German,
for it is neither elegant nor cumbrous, but metallic,
the metal not being iron, but finely tempered steel,
and the phrasing elastic and richly modulated in ac-
cordance with the Italian tradition. Then, of a sud-
den, he will say something perfectly simple, arriv-
ing at an unexpected conclusion which is presented
undraped. His lucid Italian (based, one might think,
upon Latin models) contrasts strongly in all respects
with D'Annunzio's soaring oratory, this mould of
expression sufficing by itself to distinguish the man
of action from the Platonist.

With his consent, titles of address were promptly
jettisoned, so that I could pursue my questioning
without flourishes and without needless delay. He
never attempted to correct my faulty Italian; but
when, on one occasion, I mispronounced a French
name, the sometime schoolmaster peeped out amus-
ingly, and in a low tone he uttered it as it should
have been spoken. When, in his turn, he wanted to
speak jf the "Umwertung aller Werte" (revalua-
tion of all values) , and, despite his intimate knowl-
edge of our language, made a slip, he corrected him-
self by adding ff genitivu$ pluralis" I may mention
in passing that I have heard him speak both French
and English with fluency. His memory is so good

26

INTRODUCTION

that on the spur of the moment he was able to men-
tion the names of the universities at which a French
ethnologist had taught; the names of the Jewish
generals who were serving in the Italian army at the
date of our conversations and the places in which
they held command; and also the date when John
Huss was burned.

Like all true dictators, Mussolini shows the utmost
courtesy. It would seem as if such men, between
races, like to make their steed prance gracefully
upon the saddling ground. He never appeared nerv-
ous or out of humor, but fingered a pencil while he
was talking or sometimes sketched with it idly (I
have seen the same trick in another dictator) . He
fidgeted a good deal in his chair, like a man whom
long-continued sitting makes uneasy. It has been
said that at times he breaks off in the middle of his
work, mounts a motor cycle, and races off to Ostia
with one of his children sitting pillion the police
detailed to protect him dashing after him in a desper-
ate attempt to keep in touch.

Speaking generally, he leads a far more lonely
life than do the Russian leaders, who meet one an-
other and watch one another in innumerable com-
mittees. Since he also leads an extremely healthy life
and has managed to secure a marvellously quiet

27

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

environment, he seems much more likely to live to
a ripe old age than statesmen who are incessantly
on the go. Apart from the exercise of power, he
has no enjoyments. Titles, crowns, and social life
mean nothing to him, this being specially remark-
able in Rome, where the diplomatic corps is more
strongly represented and more authoritative than
in any other capital. From this outlook, Mussolini
could to-day almost say to himself "I am the State."
Yet when two workmen turned up one evening to
repair his telephone, he greeted them and bade them
farewell with so much cordiality that I could not
but think of the cold arrogance which an ordinary
"captain of industry" would have displayed in face
of so tiresome an interruption.

Notwithstanding his reticence, he has humour, a
grim humour which manifests itself in restrained
laughterl But he cannot understand a joke and no
one would ever venture to tell him what is called
a funny story. He loves order and precision. Open-
ing one of the volumes of an encyclopaedia, he looks
for statistics concerning Italian women and gives
them to me down to three places of decimals. Once
he said to me, "I have a dislike for the a peii pres" In
the German typescript I submitted to him he punc-
tiliously corrected all the typist's errors. So great is

28

INTRODUCTION

his exactitude that when, in search of certain in-
formation, I wanted to get in touch with some of
his ministers of state, he telephoned to them twice
over, giving full details as to the place and time of
meeting and as to the materials with which they
were to supply me. Thrift, which upstarts are very
apt to forget, has for him become so much second
nature that he wrote some notes for me on the back
of cards of which the other side contained the pen-
cilled agenda of the previous week.

In conversation, Mussolini is the most natural
man in the world. Yet I know that people who are
themselves poseurs have given a different picture
of him.

THE STATESMAN

One who wishes to know a man of action as he
really is must make his acquaintance when he is well
advanced in his career, since if he be of strong char-
acter, success will develop it. For Mussolini at fifty,
mature and balanced, it seems to me that the funda-
mental moral problem must be to hold a revolution-
ary temperament in check. I do not think that he
will fail to do so, inasmuch as he embodies likewise
some of the characteristics of the paterfamilias, and
at his present age these tend to become confirmed.

29

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

But I have a second reason for believing that he will
keep the peace.

Taking into consideration all that I have heard
and all that I have seen, I have no hesitation in de-
scribing him as a great statesman. What is great-
ness in a man of action? For me this greatness must
consist in the coincidence of certain qualities, each
present in a suitable dose and combining to make up
a character capable of exercising a moral command
capable, that is to say, of constructive work in
the grand style.

I think that Mussolini to-day, ten years after the
conquest of power, is much more ardently inclined
to promote the constructive development of Italy
than to engage in destructive activities against his
enemies; it seems to me that the victories he seeks
are now only victories within the frontiers of his
own country. Apart from this, he has two traits
which are lacking in most dictators and which are
nevertheless indispensable to greatness. Though
risen to power, he has not lost the capacity of admir-
ing the great deeds of others, while he has acquired
the faculty of recognising what is symbolical in his
own achievements. Both these qualities, necessary
elements of the Goethean type, safeguard a self-
controlled man of power from megalomania and

30

INTRODUCTION

range him in that category of philosophical spirits
to which all true men o action belong.

Mussolini rose to power without having to make
war and was therefore at times exposed to the temp-
tation of seeking to acquire fame as a warrior. For
various reasons this epoch of pugnacity would ap-
pear to be closed. To-day he has the choice between
striving to resemble one or other of two contrasted
dictators, the ageing Napoleon and the ageing
Cromwell. The following conversations will show
which is likely to be his exemplar.

31

PART ONE

*+*^^

THE TRAINING OF A RULER

THE SCHOOL OF POVERTY

'HAT about hunger?" I inquired. "Was
hunger, likewise, one of your teachers?"

As I questioned him thus, he scrutinised me with
his dark eyes which gleamed like black satin in the
half light. Thrusting forward his chin as his man-
ner is, he seemed to be communing with the arduous
experiences of his youth. Then, speaking in low
tones, and pausing from time to time, he answered:

"Hunger is a good teacjjgr. Almost as good as

JfOHfllMH-l***. H^_. _ L .. J . -,,,,,.., ^Jaf ^U.*** 1 ,.-""'"*!'!,"""* **** V^

prison and a man's enemies. My mother, who was
a schoolmistress, earned fifty lire a month; my
father, a blacksmith, now more, now less. We lived
in a two-room tenement. Rareljr was there anyjrneat
on the table from one week's end to another. There
were passionate arguments and quarrels; ardent
hopes. My father was sent to prison as a Socialist
agitator. When he died, thousands of his comrades
followed his body to the grave side. All this provided
a definite trend to my aspyrajEJLQns. Had I had a dif-
ferent sort of father, I should have become a dif-
ferent sort of man. But my character was already

35

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

formed in the early days at home. Any one closely
acquainted with me at that time could already have
recognised when I was sixteen what I now am, with
all the light and shade. The fact that I was born
among the common people put the trump cards in
my hand."

This was said in his low-pitched voice, whose
sound recalls that of a distant gong. I have heard
it in two different tones. Sometimes, when he was
speaking in the open, it had a military resonance,
reminding me of Trotsky talking to the crowd. In
ordinary conversation, however, he never raises his
voice, speaking in a way which betokens a pur-
posive economising of his energies. But I have heard
him use the same repressed tones in the open air,
talking to a knot of twenty workmen who stood
round him in a circle. Xhis restraint is emblematic
of the man's whole disposition. In general, Musso-
lini holds himself in check, making a display of his
natural vigour only on rare occasions.

"With your constructive instinct," I said, "you
take delight in machines. Does this date from child-
hood, when in the smithy you made acquaintance
with the elements out of which machines are built
up? Do you believe that the practice of a handicraft
has a productive influence upon mental work?"

36

THE SCHOOL OF POVERTY
"A very powerful influence/' he answered em-
phatically. "These early impressions are deep and
lasting. Watching the hammer in the forge one ac-
quires a passion for this matter which a man can and
must fashion in accordance with his will. Down to
this very day I am attracted when I see a stonemason
building the framework for a window and I feel
that I should like to do the job myself."

"I once read a letter you wrote thirty years ago,
a letter in which you told a friend about your jour-
ney to Switzerland, and said that passing through
the St. Gotthard in the night had divided your life
into two parts."

"Yes, such was the effect of that night," said Mus-
solini. "I am sure of it, I was nineteen years old,
wrote verses, and wanted to go out into the world
to try my fortune. So impatient was I that I aban-
doned my post as schoolmaster, left my father in
prison (not that I could have done anything to set
him free!) and, almost penniless, went to Switzer-
land to make my living there as a manual worker.
One does that sort of thing in mingled enthusiasm
and despair; but perhaps rage is the dominant feel-
ing. I had been infuriated by the sorrows of my par-
ents; I had been humiliated at school; to espouse the
cause of the revolution gave hope to a young man

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
who felt himself disinherited. It was inevitable that
I should become a Socialist ultra, a Blanquist, indeed
a communist. I carried about a medallion with
Marx's head on it in my pocket. I think I regarded
it as a sort of talisman."

"What do you think of Marx now when you
look at such a medallion?"

"That he had a profound critical intelligence and
was in some sense even a prophet. But at that time,
in Switzerland, I had little chance of discussing such
matters. Among my fellow workers I was the most
cultured, and besides, we worked very long hours.
In the chocolate factory at Orbe there was a twelve-
hour day; and when I was a builder's labourer I had
to carry a hod up two storeys one hundred and
twenty times a day. Yet even then I had an obscure
conviction that I was only being schooled for what

was to come."

"Even when you were imprison?"

"There, above all," he rejoined. "There I learned
patience. Prison is like a sea voyage. On a ship and
in prison a man has to be patient."

I pressed him to tell me about these prison expe-
riences.

He leaned forward into the light of the tall stand-
ard lamp, laying both his arms on the table as is

38

THE SCHOOL OF POVERTY

his way when he wants to explain something very
clearly or to relate an anecdote. At such times he is
especially genial, thrusting his chin forward, pout-
ing his lips a little, while fruitlessly endeavouring
to mask his good humour by knitting his eyebrows.

"I have tasted prison m yarioM^cpi^tries,
eleven times in all. I was jailed in Berne, Lausanne,
Geneva, Trent, and Forli, in some of these towns
several times. It always gave me a r$$t which other-
wise I should not have been able to get. That is why
I do not bear my jailers any grudge. During one of
my terms of imprisonment I read 'Don Quixote' and
found it extraordinarily amusing."

"I suppose that is why you clap your political op-
ponents in jail?" I asked ironically, and he smiled.
"But does not the memory of your own prison ex-
periences sometimes give you pause?"

He looked at me in manifest surprise.

"By no means! It seems to me that I am perfectly
consistent. They began by locking me up. Now I
pay them back in their own coin."

39

THE SCHOOL OF THE SOLDIER AND
THE JOURNALIST

L

.N Prussia," I said, "even though we disliked
drill, military service was so attractive that, long
after it was done with, the reddest of Socialists
would, over his beer, love to recall the vanished joys
of youth in the army. But you, as I learned from
one of your letters, when you were a soldier were
fearfully patriotic, being in this matter far more
ardent than any German Socialist I have known
ever was in peace time. Instead of railing at your
officers, as did every other Italian private in those
days, you expressed a wish to be a thoroughly good
soldier. Was it a matter of personal pride or did
you wish to do yourself credit as a Socialist? 9 *

"Both reasons were at work," he rejoined. "In
truth I was a model soldier. I never felt that there
was any conflict between my military duties and
my Socialism. Why should not a good soldier be also
a fighter in the class war? It is true that even to-day
the Italians are very critical of their officers. That

41

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

makes the latter mind their p's and q's. Besides, a
man must learn to obey before he can command,"

"I find it difficult to discover when you can have
learned to obey!"

"In the army, at least," he said; but he could not
think of any other occasion.

"And to-day, after the lapse of fifteen years, do
you still think of war as a means of education, like,
so to speak, a duel? Do you still hold that such a man
as yourself ought to take his place in the trenches,
instead of continuing to work at a writing desk; and
in days to come, if similar circumstances were to
arise, would you send such a man as yourself to the
front?"

He looked at me keenly, for he saw that I was a
trifle heated and that I had given him a chance to
underline his contention. Turning a little in his
chair, he placed his finger tips together a trick
he has. Mussolini has beautiful hands, and I have
noticed the same bodily characteristics in other dic-
tators. He replied:

"What use I should make of such a man would
depend upon circumstances. As for the duel, that
is a chivalric form of encounter and I have myself
fought several duels. But the school of war is cer-
tainly a very great experience. It. brixigs _a man

42

SOLDIER AND JOURNALIST

into contact with stark reality. From day to day,
from hour to hour, he is faced with the alternative
of life or death. At the front I saw that the Italians
are good soldiers. For us this was the first great test
for a thousand years. Yes, I am not exaggerating!
Although there have been innumerable wars be-
tween the provinces and the city-states of Italy, our
nation as a whole has not known war on the grand
scale since the fall of the Roman Empire. Not even
during the overthrow of the republic of Florence
that was four centuries back. Napoleon was the first
to test our people under arms and was well content
with the result."

Since I had made up my mind never to argue a
point with him (for the object of these talks was
not that we should convince each other but merely
that I should get to know him) , I went back to the
topic of the trenches.

"It surprises me that you, of all people, found
it possible to endure the incessant proximities of
trench life. Dehmel, the poet, who went to the front
as a volunteer, told me that the hardest thing to bear
was that he was never alone."

"Same here," said Mussolini. "In compensation,
one learned, above all, the art of attack and de-
fence."

43

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"Are you talking literally or metaphorically? Did
you learn enough about strategy to turn the knowl-
edge to account in your March on Rome?"

"Literally, I learned something at the front.
Though I did not personally lead the march, the
advance in three diagonals was decided upon by me
in conversation with the generals."

"You were lucky enough to rise to power with-
out bloodshed," said I. "But suppose that some day
you were to become involved in a war, that one of
your generals proved incompetent and suffered a
defeat?"

Mussolini's face wrinkled ironically.

"Suppose! Well, what then?"

"Suppose that the upshot was the destruction of
the great work you have been constructing for so
many years."

"You know well enough," he replied, perfectly
serious once more, "that through all these years I
have been careful to avoid anything of the kind,"

I had overshot the mark a little and returned to
personal matters by asking him if he had ever been
grievously wounded.

"So badly wounded that it was impossible for me
to be moved! One of the newspapers had mentioned
where I was laid up. Thereupon the Austrians

44

SOLDIER AND JOURNALIST

shelled the hospital. All the patients except three
had been removed. There I lay for several days, ex-
pecting from moment to moment to be blown to
smithereens."

"Is it true that when they performed a necessary
operation you refused to take chloroform?"

He nodded affirmatively.

"I wanted to keep an eye upon what the surgeons
were doing."

"It seems to me you must have been an exception
in your enthusiasm for the war."

"No," he insisted. "In those days there were
plenty of young men who went joyfully to death."

"But what about the millions of the slain? Were
they all joyful in their deaths? How, then, do you
account for the fact that so vast a war did not pro-
duce a single poem worthy of the name, whereas
plenty of fine poems were written about earlier
wars, fought for vengeance or to win freedom
or perchance its semblance? Speaking generally, can
an emotional mood be sustained for several years?"

"No, no," he answered. "As for what you say
about poems, the war was too great and the men who
fought it were too small."

"The next war will be largely a war of poison
gas, a war in which there will be much less scope for

45

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

courage and little possibility for the personal activ-
ity of self-defence. Do you think that the war of
to-morrow will still be an important school, an ir-
replaceable training for youth?"

"Not irreplaceable. Still, it will always be a fine
discipline to stand fire. To win freedom from the
tremors of fear cannot fail to have a profound moral
effect."

Since Mussolini and I were not likely to come to
an understanding upon this matter of war, I turned
to the question of journalism and asked him whether
he had learned muchjLS a newspaper man.

"A great deal," he replied, speaking now more
quickly and in a livelier tone, like one looking back
upon the culminating phases of his youth. "For me
my newspaper was a weapon, a banner, my very
soul. I once thought of it as my favourite child."

"And to-day?" I asked. "If you think journalism
so important a school, why do you muzzle, the
press?"

"Things have changed very much since the war,"
he answered emphatically. "To-day the newspapers,
most of them at any rate, up longer serve, jcleas but
<$nly per$o&al interests. This being so, how can they
achieve the moral education of those who write for
them? Technically, however, journalism remains an

46

SOLDIER AND JOURNALIST

educational force, for diplomatists* and statesmen,
seeing that it accustoms them to form their views
quickly and to adapt themselves to changing situa-
tions. But a journalist should be young."

"Prince Biilow once quoted to me the French epi-
gram: f Le journalisme mene a tout, pourvu qu'on en
sorted But since you think that running a newspaper
has taught you so much and presumably your
readers as well surely you must recognise that
any kind of , censorship must make an end of this
part of productive criticism?"

"That is an illusion, 5 ' he briskly rejoined. "First of
all," he picked up a newspaper, "here you will find
one of my ordinances vigorously criticised. In the
second place, when there is no censorship, the papers
only publish what their paymasters, large-scale in-
dustry and the banks, want to have printed."

"Perhaps things were not quite so bad twenty
years ago, when you were an interviewer. In those
days did you study the physiognomy of your sub-
jects? And did you prepare yourself for the fray, as
I have prepared myself before coming to interview
you?"

"Of course I did," said Mussolini. "For instance,
when I interviewed Briand at Cannes. Not so very
long afterwards we met again as prime ministers.

47

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
I have always been a physiognomist. But to-day,
when I read even more newspapers than I used to do,
I sometimes think that any four-footed jackass
could write better than these fellows do. Especially
do I think so when I read attacks."

"You read a lot of newspapers, then?"

"All I can, and especially the journals of my
enemies. I collect caricatures too, and have volumes
filled with them."

"There have already been caricatures of you and
me together," said I. "In a German newspaper I am
figured sitting astride your shoulder."

Mussolini laughed, saying:

"Caricature is important; it is necessary. Your
people are always saying that the government of
Italy is now a tyranny. Have you read Trilusso's
satires? They are venomous, but so clever that I have
not suppressed them."

"To-day, when you can survey the problems of
state from an airplane, do you find that your earlier
critical writings were unjust? Or were you already
constructive as a Socialist newspaper man?"

"Oh, I used to make constructive proposals even
then; but only now am I able to take a comprehen-
sive view, and that makes me gentler in my judg-
ment of my colleagues."

48

SOLDIER AND JOURNALIST

"But if you write articles to-day, are you more

moderate than you used to be?"
His eyes flashed as he answered:
"I can only write fiercely and resolutely/ 5
"In those earlier days, when your fierceness and

resoluteness seemed of no avail, did you think that

you were still only in the prelude?"

The sternness of his expression relaxed. In such

moments of expansion, he opens his eyes so wide that

one feels as if he wished to breathe in the light

through them.

fered, I had 3 definite ioreboding
trainedL for a mate important position."

49

THE SCHOOL OF HISTORY

OO1

)ME one had made me a present of the edition
de luxe of Machiavelli, which the Fascist State pub-
lishing organisation has somewhat too conspicuously
dedicated to the Duce. All the same, it is doubtless
better that a dictatorial government should ac-
knowledge its obligations to this instructor of
dictators than that, while secretly acting on his
theories, it should use "Machiavellian" as a term of
abuse. When Frederick the Great was yet only
crown prince he wrote his moralising "Anti-
MachiaveL" In later days he became more straight-
forward, governing frankly in accordance with
Machiavelli's principles.

"Did you make early acquaintance with Ma-
chiavelli's 'The Prince?' " I asked Mussolini.

"My father used to read the book aloud in the
evenings, when we were warming ourselves beside
the smithy fire and were drinking the vin ordinaire
produced from our own vineyard. It made a deep
impression on me. When, at the age of forty, I read
Machiavelli once again, the effect was reinforced."

51

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
"It is strange/* I said, "how such men as Machia-
velli flourish for a time, pass into oblivion, and are
then resuscitated. It seems as if there were seasonal

variations."

"What you say is certainly true of nations. They
have a spring and a winter, more than one. At length
they perish."

"It is because there are recurring seasons in the
national life that I have never been much alarmed
that winter now prevails in Germany," said I. "A
hundred years ago and more, when Germany had
fallen on evil days, Goethe made fun of those who
spoke of our 'decay.' Have you studied any of the
notable figures of our political life?"

"Bismarck," he promptly answered. "From the
outlook of political actualities, he was the greatest
man of his century. I have never thought of him as
merely the comic figure with three hairs on his bald
head and a heavy footfall. Your book confirmed my
impression as to how versatile and complex he was.
In Germany, do people know much about our
Cavour?"

"Very little," I answered. "They know much
more about Mazzini. Recently I read a very fine
letter of Mazzini's to Charles Albert, written, I
think, in 1831 or 1832; the invocation of a poet to

52

THE SCHOOL OF HISTORY

a prince. Do you approve of Charles Albert's having
issued orders for Mazzini's imprisonment should he
cross the frontier?"

"The letter," said Mussolini, "is one of the most
splendid documents ever written. Charles Albert's
figure has not yet become very clear to us Italians.
A little while ago his diary was published and this
throws considerable light upon his psychology. At
first, of course, he inclined to the side of the liberals.
When, in 1 8 3 2 no, in 1 8 3 3 the Sardinian Gov-
ernment sentenced Mazzini to death in con-
tumacmm, this happened in a peculiar political

situation."

The answer seemed to me so guarded that, in my
persistent but unavowed determination to compare
the present to the past, I considered it necessary to
speak more clearly.

"Those were the days when Young Italy was
being published illegally. Don't you think that such
periodicals appear under all censorships? "Would
you have imprisoned Mazzini?"

"Certainly not," he rejoined. "If a man has ideas
in his head, let him come to me, and we will talk
things over. But when Mazzini wrote that letter,
he was guided more by his feelings than by his reason.
Piedmont in those days had only four million in-

53

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

habitants and could not possibly form front against
powerful Austria with her thirty millions."

"Well, Mazzini was jailed," I resumed. "Soon
afterwards, Garibaldi was sentenced to death. Two
generations later, you were put in prison. Should we
not infer that a ruler ought to think twice before
punishing his political opponents?"

"I suppose you mean that we don't think twice
here in Italy?" he inquired with some heat.

"But you have reintroduced capital punish-

ment."

"There is capital punishment in all civilised
countries; in Germany, no less than in France and
in England."

"Yet it was in Italy," I insisted, "in the mind of
Beccaria, that the idea of abolishing capital punish-
ment originated. Why have you revived it?"

"Because I have read Beccaria," replied Mussolini,
simply and without irony. He went on, with the
utmost gravity: "What Beccaria writes is contrary
to what most people believe. Besides, after capital
punishment was abolished in Italy, there was a
terrible increase in serious crime. As compared with
England, the tally in Italy was five to one. I am
guided, in this matter, exclusively by social con-
siderations. Was it not Saint Thomas who said that it

54

THE SCHOOL OF HISTORY

would be better to cut off a gangrenous arm if
thereby the whole body could be saved? Anyhow, I
proceed with the utmost caution and circumspec-
tion. Only in cases of acknowledged and exception-
ally brutal murders is the death punishment in-
flicted. Not very long ago, two rascals violated a
youth and then murdered him. Both the offenders
were sentenced to death. I had followed the trial
with close attention. At the last moment doubt
became insistent. One of the two offenders was a
habitual criminal who had avowed his crime; the
other, a much younger man, had pleaded not guilty,
and there were no previous charges against him.
Six hours before the execution I reprieved the^
younger of the two."

"You could put that in the chapter, Advantages
of Dictatorship/ " I said.

His repartee was swift and couched in a tone of
mockery:

"The alternative is a state machine which grinds
on automatically without any one having the power
to stop its working."

"Would you like to leave this contentious topic
and talk about Napoleon?"

"Go ahead!"

"Despite our previous conversations, I am not

55

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
clear whether you regard him as a model or as a
warning/'

He sat back in his chair, looked rather gloomy,
and said in a restrained tone:

"As a warning. I have never taken Napoleon as
an examplar, for in no respect am I comparable to
him. His activities were of a very different kind
from mine. He put a term to a revolution, whereas
I have begun one. The record of his life has made
me aware of errors which are by no means easy to
avoid/' Mussolini ticked them off on his fingers.
"Nepotism. A contest with the papacy. A lack of
understanding of finance and economic life. He saw
nothing more than that after his victories there was

a rise in securities."

"What laid him low? The professors declare that
he was shipwrecked on the rock of England."

"That is nonsense," answered Mussolini. "Napo-
leon fell, as you yourself have shown, because of the
contradictions in his own character. At long last,
that is what always leads to a man's downfall. He
wanted to wear the imperial crown! He wanted to
found a dynasty! As First Consul he was at the
climax of his greatness. The decline began with the
foundation of the empire. Beethoven was perfectly
right when he withdrew the dedication of the

56

THE SCHOOL OF HISTORY

Eroica. It was the wearing of the crown which con-
tinually entangled the Corsican in fresh wars. Com-
pare him with Cromwell The latter had a splendid
idea; supreme power in the State and no war!**

I had brought him to a point of outstanding im-
portance.

"There can, then, be imperialism without an im-
perium?"

"There are half a dozen different kinds of im-
perialism. There is really no need for all the blazons
of empire. Indeed, they are dangerous. The more
widely empire is diffused, the more does it forfeit its
organic energy. All the same, the tendency towards
imperialism is one of the elementary trends of
human nature, an expression of the will to power.
Nowadays we see the imperialism of the dollar;
there is also a religious imperialism, and an artistic
imperialism as well. In any case, these are tokens of
the human vital energy. So long as a man lives, he
is an imperialist. When he is dead, for him imperial-

ism is over."

At this moment Mussolini looked extraordinarily
Napoleonic, reminding me of Lefevre's engraving
of 181 5. But now the tension of his features relaxed
and in a quieter tone he continued:

"Naturally every imperium has its zenith. Since

57

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

it is always the creation of exceptional men, it carries
within it the seeds of its own decay. Like everything
exceptional, it contains ephemeral elements. It may
last one or two centuries, or no more than ten years.
The will to power."

"Is it to be kept going only by war?" I asked.

"Not only," he answered. "Of that there can be
no question." He became a little didactic. "Thrones
need wars for their maintenance, but dictatorships
can sometimes get on without them. The power of
a nation is the resultant of numerous elements and
these are not exclusively military. Still, I must admit
that hitherto, as far as the general opinion is con-
cerned, the position of a nation has greatly depended
upon its military strength. Down to the present
time, people have regarded the capacity for war as
the synthesis of all the national energies.* 5

"Till yesterday," I interpolated. "But what about
to-morrow?"

"To-morrow?" he reiterated sceptically. "It is
true that capacity for war-making is no longer /a
dependable criterion of power. For to-morrow,
therefore, there is need of some sort of international
authority. At least, the unification of a cbhtinent.
Now that the unity of States has been achieved, an
attempt will be made to achieve the unity of con-

58

THE SCHOOL OF HISTORY
tinents. But as far as Europe is concerned, that will
be damnably difficult, since each nation has its own
peculiar countenance, its own language, its own
customs, its own types. For each nation, a certain
percentage of these characteristics (x per cent., let
us say) remains completely original, and this in-
duces resistance to any sort of fusion. In America,
no doubt, things are easier. There eight-and-forty
States, in which the same language is spoken every-
where and whose history is so short, can maintain
their union."

"But surely," I put in, "each nation possesses y
per cent, of characteristics which are purely
European?"

"This lies outside the power of each nation.
Napoleon wanted to establish unity in Europe. The
unification . of Europe was his leading ambition.
To-day such a unification has perhaps become
possible, but even then only on the ideal plane, as
Charlemagne or Charles V tried to bring it about,
from the Atlantic Ocean to the Urals."

"Or, maybe, only to the Vistula?"

"Yes, maybe, only to the Vistula."

"Is it your idea that such a Europe would be under
Fascist leadership?"

"What is leadership?" he countered. "Here in

59

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
Italy our Fascism is what it is. Perhaps it contains
certain elements which other countries might
adopt."

"I always find you more moderate than most
Fascists," said I. "You would be amazed if you knew
what a foreigner in Rome has to listen to. Perhaps
it was the same thing under Napoleon at the climax
of his career. Apropos, can you explain to me why
the Emperor never became completely wedded to
his capital, why he always remained le fianct de
Paris?"

Mussolini smiled and began his reply in French:

fr Ses manieres n'etaient pas tres parisiennes. Per-
haps there was a brutal strain in him. Moreover, he
had many opponents. The Jacobins were against him
because he had crushed the revolution; the legiti-
hiates, because he was a usurper; the religious-
minded, because of his contest with the papacy. It
was only the common folk who loved him. They had
plenty to eat under his regime, and they are more
impressed by fame than are the educated classes.
You must remember that fame is a matter not of
logic, but of sentiment/*

"You speak rather sympathetically of Napoleon!
It would seem that your respect for him has not
diminished during your own tenure of power, in

60

THE SCHOOL OF HISTORY

which you have become enabled to understand his
situation from personal experience. 5 *

"No, on the contrary, my respect for him has
increased."

"When he was still a youthful general, he said
that an empty throne always tempted him to take his
seat upon it. What do you think of that?"

Mussolini opened his eyes wide, as he does when
in an ironical mood, but at the same time he smiled.

"Since the days when Napoleon was emperor," he
said, "thrones have become much less alluring than
they were/*

"True enough/* I replied. "Nobody wants to be
a king nowadays. When, a little while ago, I said to
King Fuad of Egypt, 'Kings must be loved, but
dictators dreaded,' he exclaimed, 'How I should like
to be a dictatotl^Does history^give any record of a
usurper who was loved?*'

Mussolini, whose changes of countenance always
foreshadow his answers (unless he wants to conceal
his thoughts) became earnest of mien once more.
His expression of sustained energy relaxed, so that
he looked younger than usual. After a pause, and
even then hesitatingly, he rejoined:

"Julius Caesar, perhaps. The assassination of
Caesar jps a misfortune for mankind." He added

61

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

softly, "I love Caesar. He was unique in that he
combined the will of the warrior with the genius
of the sage. At bottom he was a philosopher who
saw everything sub specie eternitatis. It is true that
he had a passion for fame, but his ambition did not
cut him off from human kind."

"After all, then, a dictator can be loved?"
"Yes," answered Mussolini with renewed decisive-
ness. "Provided that the masses fear him at the same
time. The crowd loves strong men. The crowd is
like a woman."

62

PART T0

METAMORPHOSES

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM

I entered, I saw from a distance that Mussolini
was fluttering the pages of a newspaper- "When
I had crossed the ocean of the great hall and had
reached the harbour of his writing table, he tore
off a half -sheet covered with pictures, handed it
to me, and said sarcastically:

"Look! New tractors, only tractors; no big guns!
Please make a note of it!"

I saw, indeed, an illustration of a long train of
these modern elephants, slowly advancing, and said:

"If I am to make people believe that you are giving
away pictures of tractors, I must ask you to sign
your name at the foot!"

He smiled, did what I requested, and handed me
back the picture as a memento.

"All the same," I said, "it seems to me that you
are the man for big guns. That was why, the other
day, you referred to your youth as having been that
of a Communist. It is one of the paradoxes 'of your
development, explicable enough, however, that you,

65

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

a renegade from the most pacifist of all political
parties, and after spending your prime amongst
cannon, should now turn back towards tractors.
Your Christian name, indeed, should give you a
push in this direction!"

He was silent but amused, while I went on: x

"Is it possible that you do not believe in the magi-
cal power of a name? Do you not find it strange
that a blacksmith should have named his two sons
after two well-named disturbers of the peace?"

"It did not do my brother much good," answered
Mussolini. "He lacked the passionate impetus of
that Arnaldo after whom he was called. A revolu-
tionist is born, not made/*

"Do you think there is any notable difference be-
tween the composition of a modern revolutionist
and that of one of earlier days?"

"The form has changed. One condition, how-
ever, has been requisite through all the ages
courage, physical as well as moral. For the rest,
every revolution creates new forms, new myths
and new rites; and the would-be revolutionist,
while using old traditions, must refashion them.
He must create new festivals, new gestures, new
forms, which will themselves in turn become tra-
ditional. The airplane festival is new to-day. In

66

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM
half a century it will be encrusted with the patina
of tradition,"

"Don't you think that many young men are only
anarchists because they have no chance of becom-
ing rulers?"

"Of course," he replied; "eyery anarchist is a dic-
tator who has missed fire."

"But since you feel that you yourself were edu-
cated by the revolutionary spirit of your youth, by
rebelliousness and originality, why is it that to-day
you enforce obedience and order upon the young
and construct a new bureaucracy, you who made
mock of the old one?"

"You are mistaken," he tranquilly objected. "In
our fathers' days, governments had not a sufficient
sense of the State. Besides, new times have brought
new tasks for the nation; if there is to be a maximum
of efficiency, there must be a maximum of order.
Here in Italy we have realised as much as is real-
isable in the present phase of development. As
regards bureaucracy, I admit the force of your
criticism, but bureaucracy is inevitable. Concern-
ing order, we have to do with historical necessities.
We are living in the third act of the drama. There
comes a moment

conservative."

67

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"It ought to make you long-suffering when you
remember your own imprisonment, and when those
who used to be your friends have become your
foes."

"Well, I have not troubled those of my comrades
who have ceased to march in line with me."

"It must be difficult," I went on, "for a revolu-
tionist, one who acts outside the law, to impose
limits upon himself. In the year 1911, when you
were being prosecuted, you said that sabotage must
have a moral purpose; it was permissible to cut tele-
graph wires but not to derail a neutral train. That
remark of yours made a great impression on me.
How are we to draw the line between permissible
and unpermissible revolution?"

"That is a moral question which each revolu-
tionist must decide for himself."

I seized the opportunity of asking him about his
plans in those pre-war days.

"If, in the year 1913, you had been successful
in the revolt at Milan, what would have been the
upshot?"

"Then? The republic!" came the reply, short and
sharp.

"But how do these ideas comport with a nation-
68

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM
alism which was already a fully developed creed?"

"Surely a republican can just as well be a nation-
alist as a monarchist can be perhaps better. Are
there not plenty of examples?"

"But if |iationalism be independent of forms of
government, and also of questions of class, then it
must also be independent of questions of race.
Do you really believe, as some ethnologists con-
tend, that there are still pure races in Europe? Do
you believe that racial unity is a requisite guarantee
for vigorous nationalist aspirations? Are you not
exposed to the danger that the apologists of Fascism
will (like Professor Blank) talk the same nonsense
about the Latin races as northern pedants have
talked about the "noble blonds/ and thereby in-
crease rival pugnacities?"

Mussolini grew animated, for this is a matter
upon which, owing no doubt to the exaggeration
of some of the Fascists, he feels that he is likely to
be misunderstood.

"Of course there are no pure races left; not even

""*"* , , , ,,,,!,) 1 ... * *''' "" ''

the Jews have kept their blood unmingled. Suc-
cessful crossings have often promoted the energy
and the beauty of a nation. Race! It is a feeling, not
a reality; ninety-five per cent.* at least, is a feeling.

69

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically
pure races can be shown to exist to-day. Amusingly
enough, not one of those who have proclaimed the
'nobility' of the Teutonic race was himself a Teuton.
Gobineau was a Frenchman; Houston Chamberlain,
an Englishman; Woltmann, a Jew; Lapogue, an-
other Frenchman. Chamberlain actually declared
that Rome was the capital of chaos. No such doc-
trine will ever find wide acceptance here in Italy.
Professor Blank, whom you quoted just now, is a
man with more poetic imagination than science in
his composition. National pride has no need of the
delirium of race."

"That is the best argument against anti-Semi-
tism," said I.

"Anti-Semitism does not exist in Italy," answered
Mussolini. "Italians of Jewish birth have shown
themselves good citizens, and they fought bravely
in the war. Many of them occupy leading positions
in the universities, in the army, in the banks. Quite
a number of them are generals; Modena, the com-
mandant of Sardinia, is a general of the artillery."

"Nevertheless," I put in, "Italian refugees in
Paris use it as an argument against you that you
have forbidden the admission of Jews to the
Academy."

70

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM

"The accusation is absurd. Since my day, there
has been no Jew suitable for admission. Now Delia
Seta is a candidate; a man of great learning, the lead-
ing authority on prehistoric Italy."

"If you are falsely accused in this matter, you
suffer in good company. In Germany there is a
preposterous fable that Bismarck and Goethe were
prejudiced against Jews. Without any justification,
the French speak of a certain anomaly as f le vice
allemand* The term might be more reasonably ap-
plied to anti-Semitism/*

"How do you explain that?" asked Mussolini.

"Whenever things go awry in Germany, the Jews
are blamed for it. Just now we are in exceptionally
bad case!"

"Ah, yes, the scapegoat!"

I returned, to the wider question of race.

"If, then, neither race nor the form of govern-
ment accounts for nationalism, are we to attribute
it to community of speech? But ancient Rome, like
other empires, was a State in which many tongues
were spoken; and in modern history it has never
seemed to me that multiplicity of languages was a
source of weakness to a State. The Habsburg do-
minion fell, but Switzerland flourishes."

"I do not think that unity of speech is decisive

71

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
in this matter," said Mussolini. "Austria did not
perish because it was a polyglot realm, but because
it was a constrained unification of many conquered
peoples under one sceptre, whereas in Switzerland
those who speak various tongues have spontaneously
combined to form a nationality. Switzerland was
able to maintain her neutrality throughout the
Great War because the French-speaking element,
inclining towards one side, and the German-speak-
ing element, inclining towards the other, were
fairly balanced. I regard Switzerland as a very im-
portant link in the chain of European States, for,
owing to the very fact that she is a composite, she
is able to mitigate much of the friction between the
two great rivals on her frontier."

"If you are as little concerned as we are about
the diversity of tongues, I presume you are not
an advocate of a universal language?"

"A sort of universal dialect is in course of forma-
tion," he rejoined. "Technical advances and sport
are bringing it into being. But Esperanto would
make all the national literatures obsolete and what
would the world be without poesy?"

"Nevertheless, here in Italy I see flagrant con-
tradictions. In your youth you declaimed against
the Austrian Government, which forbade the joiners

72

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM

of Bozen to use their native Italian. 'If a language is
forced on us, we shall answer force with force.'
This phrase, penned by a Socialist, that is to say,
by a citizen of the world, cannot be excelled as a
manifestation of national feeling. Well, I cannot but
ask myself, and cannot but ask you,- why to-day
you are not behaving better than the Austrians
did then. "Why, in this respect, likewise, do you not
step forward into the twentieth century?"

"I am stepping forward into the twentieth cen-
tury," replied Mussolini with perfect calm. "The
people of Southern Tyrol are not being coerced.
One hundred and eighty thousand of them are Ger-
mans, and there are also a great many Slav immi-
grants, so that the so-called racial purity does not
exist there. If we teach them Italian, it is in their
own interest as Italian citizens. Nevertheless, they
have German newspapers, German magazines, Ger-
man theatres. We do nothing whatever to cut the
thread of their German descent. If they lived in the
centre of Italy instead of on the frontier, we should
trouble them still less. Of course, a unified speech
is one of the elements of national power. Govern-
ments have always recognised this and all of them
have therefore done their utmost to unify the
national speech."

73

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"You are talking after the manner of the nine-
teenth century," I said. "Before the war, the policy
of the German empire in Poland and in Alsace was as
shortsighted as are to-day the German and the Polish
policy in the same territories. The authorities did
not or do not feel sure of themselves. What about
the opposite case, when you want immigrants to
retain their national feelings? Do you think it really
important that Italians living in America should
continue to speak their mother tongue? In Chicago
I had a talk with a group of Italians and they spoke
to me in English."

"You are making a mistake," he said. "We con-
sider it a matter of principle to ask our fellow
countrymen to be loyal to the State in which they
live. If they acquire full citizenship in the spiritual
sense as well as in the material, they count for some-
thing; but if they hold themselves aloof from their
adoptive land, they remain helots. Since we began
to advocate the policy of assimilation, many Italian-
born citizens have attained high positions over
there."

"You hold, then," I inquired, "that in matters of
language and of race, too, there is no such thing as
an inevitable fate rousing the nations to mutual
hostility?"

74

SOCIALISM AND NATIONALISM

"Fate!" he cried mockingly. "Statesmen only
talk of fate when they have blundered/*

"A fourth reason for nationalism," I went on,
continuing my analysis, "seems to me to exist uni-
versally in what are called 'the demands of history/
For instance, you once spoke of a colony which be-
longed to classical Rome."

"That was only a literary flourish," said Musso-
lini. "I was speaking of Lybia, which was then un-
peopled. If the government in modern Rome wanted
to claim the territory colonised by classical Rome,
it would have to demand the return of Portugal,
Switzerland, Glasgow, Pannonia, and, indeed, all
western, central, and southern Europe, to the
Italian flag."

When making such statements, which in print
se^m obviously ironical, Mussolini remains per-
fectly serious, and because he therefore wishes to
avoid any mannerisms which would give an abstract
flavour to what he means to be concrete.

By a transition whose details I have forgotten,
I passed on to discuss the physiognomical results of
nationalist education.

"It seems to me that Fascism is changing the faces
of the Italians. I am doubtful if this is a matter for
congratulation. Goethe said that the finger of God

75

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

was more plainly visible in an Italian countenance
than in a German."

"There is a moral reason for the change," said
Mussolini. "Our faces are becoming more tensed.
The will to action modifies the features; even sports
and physical exercise induce changes. That is why
a handicraftsman looks so different from a factory
worker."

"Your head," I rejoined, "has been compared with
that of Colleoni. Like such comparisons in general,
it is only applicable from time to time. You Italians
know full well that the condottieri were not con-
dottieri all the time. Montefeltre was a thinker!"

"Yes," replied Mussolini, "the condottiere is not
a mere brute. Once in his life, perhaps, he may have
been a savage beast. In general, however, these men
were no more savage than their contemporaries. It
was the times that were savage."

"Does the comparison to which I have just re-
ferred please you?" I asked.

Mussolini looked at me with a penetrating glance,
thrust forward his lower jaw, and made no answer.
At that moment he certainly did look like Colleoni.

76

CAUSES OF THE WAR

IN

the Air Ministry, Balbo had been showing me
the whole of his realm, literally from the cellar,
where (as in the case of a great steamship) the work-
ing parts of the big machine were installed, to the
roof on which the officials played tennis in the eve-
ning. The passion for constructive enterprise, which
to-day has mastered even the Italian youth, is here
intertwined with their inborn feeling for beauty.
This building, the latest and the finest in the coun-
try, an edifice of which they are all proud, is half
Russian, half American. In Moscow, I saw a couple
of thousand persons feeding together as practically,
as quickly, and as hygienically as here, where the
luncheon half -hour was rendered agreeable with
music, and where the walls were adorned with cari-
catures of the air service. But in Moscow there
had been three classes of meals, at different prices,
whereas in Rome all the members of the staff, from
the ministers of state down to the youngest of the
secretaries sat down together to eat the same food,

77

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

though they paid a sum ranging from two to seven
lire proportional to their respective salaries. Balbo
was prouder of the pneumatic system, by means of
which he was able to send hot coffee in thermos
flasks to every room of the building, than he was
of his flight to South America.

"He seems to me half a poet," said I, when I was
telling Mussolini of my visit. "The walls of his office
are decorated with oracular sentences."

"Most airmen are poets as well," said Mussolini.
"He has written a book and is a man of all-round
competence."

"What a pity," I remarked, "that in your Air
Ministry ninety per cent, of their energies are de-
voted to war purposes and only ten per cent, to
civilian undertakings. The delight in technical ad-
vances is to-day perpetually dashed by this thought."

"You see spooks everywhere," he said derisively.

"If I do, it is because I cannot forget the experi-
ences of the war years,"

"I have read your book," answered Mussolini,
" 'July 1914,' in which you describe the follies and
the crimes of a handful of statesmen of both parties.
Your account is fully justified. Nevertheless, be-
yond (or, if you like, beneath) diplomatic intrigues,
I discern prof ounder causes of the war. You your-

78

CAUSES OF THE WAR

self say that it is your aim to deal only with July
and to ignore the faults of earlier days. In truth the
war had become inevitable. There had been too great
an accumulation of motives and of tensions; the
drama had to be played out. They had conjured up
the devil and could not but let him wreak his will."

"And yet/* I rejoined, "you yourself have writ-
ten that the unscrupulousness of the European
governments before the war was a disgrace to man-
kind. As late as July, 1914, you were still exclaim-
ing: *Abasso la guerra!' I know that only fanciful
ideologists will complain of you for changing your
views. One who throughout those multifarious hap-
penings remained consistently of the same mind
only showed himself to be a man in whom fixed ideas
prevailed, notwithstanding the power of realities.
What really concerns us to-day is to understand the
motives of those who made the war. Yesterday
Marchese X., one of the negotiators of the Peace of
Versailles, informed me that hunger was the main
reason why Italy entered the war, for your coun-
try, he said, was in this respect troubled far more
than Greece by the British fleet. At first there was
no interference with the food supply of Greece/*

Laying his arms on the table, Mussolini leaned
forward. This is his combative attitude, but when

79

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

he assumes it he is collected and resolute, self-
controlled and clear-minded.

"The motive of hunger," he said, "played its part;
but it was not decisive. No doubt, for purely geo-
graphical reasons, the position of our peninsula was
a dangerous one. But in this matter, too, my
thoughts are revolutionary. The declaration of neu-
trality was the first revolutionary demonstration
against the government which, on theoretical
grounds, considered itself bound to the Central
Powers. You know all about Count Berchtold's in-
fringement of the treaties/*

I replied:

"If, at that time, Italy was inspired by so pro-
found a sense of allegiance to France, why was it
that no one remembered that at Villafranca, in
1859, France robbed Italy of half the fruits of vic-
tory, whereas it was Prussia which, through the
wars of 1866 and 1870 against Austria and France
respectively, first established the foundations which
made the unification of Italy possible."

He nodded and answered:

"What you say is perfectly true. But there were
a number of opposing moral considerations,, the in-
vasion above all. On the other hand, at that period,
France was greatly loved, and French propaganda

80

CAUSES OF THE WAR
could make play with democracy, the Freemasons,
and other elements. More especially, the Habsburgs
were detested. If_was_against.-Austria -rather -than
against Germany that we came into the war. Vari-
ous trends were at work coalescing to make a mighty
current. The nationalists wanted expansion; the
democrats wanted Trent; the syndicalists wanted
war in the hope that it would lead to a revolution.
That was my own position at this juncture. For the
first time, the great majority of the nation was
actively opposed to the parliamentarians and the
politicians. I made common cause with persons of
the latter way of thinking."

"Could not you have gained your end at less
cost?" I asked. "When the Socialists in Berlin and in
Paris rallied to the side of their respective war-
making governments, their conduct was, in point of
principle, unpardonable, but it was comprehensible
enough, for in each country the general belief was
that the other had been the aggressor. Italy alone
was in the fortunate position of being able to main-
tain an armed neutrality, which would have enabled
her, with an intact army, by mere threats to com-
pel the exhausted victors to make extensive con-
cessions to her at the end of the war. Why did not
Italy adopt this course? There was a great deal of

81

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

talk at that time about national honour, and you
yourself often used the phrase. "Was it 'national
honour* which induced you to take up the sword?"

"Nobody likes a neutral," said Mussolini, "but this
was no more than a primary, a sentimental, motive.
jThe most important factor was our conviction that,
no matter which side was victorious, we should, as
neutrals, find ourselves at the close of the war faced
by a coalition. Germany as victor would never have
forgiven us for our neutrality; and, had we stood
aside, at Paris the Entente would have treated us
even more contemptuously than she treated the
Central Powers, We had to reckon with the possi-
bility that it would be necessary to take up arms
against a combination of States, war-wearyjitcfligh
they might be. My third motive was a personal one.
I wanted to bring about the rebirth oiXtalv and
I have fulfilled my end."

"But it was your own party," I objected, which
had annulled or at any rate weakened, the nation-
alist spirit of Italy! Well, you left the party and
declared yourself free. Did that mean free from
dogma or free from party?"

"Free from party," he replied. "But even as an
ex-Socialist I cannot accept your statement of the
case. However it may have been in other lands, here

82

CAUSES OF THE WAR

in Italy Socialism was a unifying factor. All Italian
historians have recognised this. The Socialists of Italy
were advocates of one idea and of one nation. From
1892, when they cut adrift from the anarchists at
the Congress of Genoa, down till 1911, they battled
on behalf of a united Italy. Then came internal dis-
putes and conflicting trends and therewith the de-
cline of the movement began. It was at this juncture
that I became convinced of the need for a great
stirring of the whole people to consolidate the moral
unity of our nation with or without Socialism/*

"But supposing/' I inquired, "that the German
and the French Socialists had taken a firm stand
against the war, or had at least voted against the
war credits, what would have been your atti-
tude?"

"In that case the whole situation would have been
different," he exclaimed. "Had the French and the
German Socialists taken such a line, everything
would have run a different course."

"What did you think about the murder of
Jaures?"

Mussolini pondered a while before answering.

"I knew him personally," he said. "When he was
assassinated, I looked upon his death as one of those
fatalities which modify the trend of events."

83

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"Would Italy have remained neutral but for
you?"

"There were three of us working towards the
same end," said Mussolini. "D'Annunzio, who had
years before aroused enthusiasm for the fleet by his
Odi navali and now made a fervent appeal to the
university students and to the Italian youth in gen-
eral; Corridono, the working-class leader, who sub-
sequently fell at the front; and I myself, who trans-
formed the Socialist Party. 3 *

"I have been told that when the Party expelled
you, you shouted, in answer to the hissing and invec-
tive which arose from all parts of the hall, 'You hate
me because you still love me!' That was a fine saying.
I suppose it really happened?"

He nodded assent and thereupon I questioned him
once more about his early nationalist leanings, fie
said:

"As long ago as 1911, when I was still a member
of the Socialist Party, I wrote that the Gordian knot
of Trent could be cut only by the sword. At the
same date I declared that war is usually the prelude
to revolution. It was therefore easy for me, when
the Great War broke out, to predict the Russian
and the German revolutions."

"You were under the spell of the notion that there
84

CAUSES OF THE WAR

were 'two Germanys' and believed in all the tales
of atrocities!"

"Yes," he agreed. "I continued to admire German
literature and music but at the same time I believed
in the story of the Belgian horrors. Subsequently,
when they were refuted, I publicly acknowledged
as much in the Senate, to the astonishment of cer-
tain Belgians. Such horrors as occurred were simply
the horrors of the war and not German atrocities in
particular. An Italian pastor, a Protestant, domiciled
in the United States, was sent to Belgium during the
war to collect evidence regarding these alleged Ger-
man atrocities. He wrote me a remarkable letter, to
the effect that he had done his utmost to find sub-
stantiation, for this was needed to use in war propa-
ganda. 'Unfortunately, although I spent months
upon the search, I could not discover any atroci-

ties.' "

"It seems, then," I concluded, "that you waged
your own war and made your own revolution.
Both of them with success. In the sense of Nietzsche,
a sense which combines your views and mine, let
me ask you what was your predominant motive?
There was little to complain of in Austrian rule
in the Tridentino, and you had always been a sav-
age critic of the Italian bureaucracy. The only way

85

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
in which I can account for your forcible severance
from your past is by supposing that you wanted to
govern in accordance with your particular fancy.
Is it true that your main purpose was to refashion
Italy in accordance with your own vision?"

"That was it,** he answered decisively.

"I am glad to have your acknowledgment. Most
men would be afraid to make it and would wrap
up their purposes in a cloud of phraseology/*

He eyed me gloomily and said, "I have never tried
to prove an alibi."

ON THE ROAD TO POWER

JVLuSSOLINI looked pale and out of humour in
the lamplight. He ruffled the newspaper in his hand
as I came to the end of the twenty yards' promenade
from the door to his desk. This was not unen-
cumbered as usual, for on it there lay a thick pile
of documents. I knew that the two men who had
left him a minute or two before my arrival were
bank directors, so I said:

"You are tired this evening. Would you rather
postpone our conversation?"

"I have had to study the balance sheet of the
Banca di Roma," he said, resting his chin on his
hand. "Never mind. Let's have our talk. It will be
a relaxation."

The strain he had been undergoing was manifest
in the curtness of his subsequent rejoinders. I in-
quired:

"Had you not many such moments of fatigue, of
discouragement, during the war? In your articles,
especially in the later ones, you write so bitterly

87

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

about fraternity that I read into them disillusion-
ment concerning all that happened, even the vic-
tory. In one of them you said that the germs of
decay are hidden in a victorious nation. That remark
is rather too philosophic for a man of action. 5 *

He pulled down the corners of his mouth and
stared at me vacantly as he replied:

"Was it not enough to make a man weary when
these symptoms of decay persisted for years after
the victory? Every nation engaged in the war made
heroic efforts; but it seemed to us here in Italy as
if we were being deprived of the reward of victory/*

"I can understand that you felt yourselves to
have been cheated in Paris/' said I. "But why did you
and your adherents speak of a Fiume f sacrificato, 9
merely because your friends of yesterday, the Allies,
continued to hold the place? A man who at that
time was a prominent figure said to me that Fiume
was only thrust into the foreground by the refer-
endum, and that the sole reason why Orlando, the
arch-parliamentarian, made such a to-do about it
was that it had become a popular catchword. Why
should Fiume have developed into a sort of holy of
holies just after the war, as if it had played a great
part in Italian history and civilisation like Florence
or Bologna? 3 *

88

ON THE ROAD TO POWER

He continued to gaze into vacancy and said:

"You are wrong in thinking that that was a mere
matter of parliamentary finesse. Fiume was an
Italian town, as dear to us as any other. In Fiume,
just as in Trieste and Trent, there were Irredentists
who wanted their native city to become part of
Italy."

I alluded to the fact that the number of inhabi-
tants of Fiume who had acclaimed D'Annunzio's
raid had, after all, not been very large.

"He was idolised by the people! Naturally such a
situation as arose there tends to become oppressive
after twelve months or so. Still, there can be no
doubt whatever that we owe Fiume to D'Annunzio."

He said this bluntly, without sign of emotion, as
one who utters a historical truth about which there
can be no question. I went on to speal of the peace,
quoted some of the utterances of the delegates to
Versailles, and proceeded to inquire:

"Do you blame Orlando for the losses of Italy at
the Peace Conference? Was his character flawed?
According to certain Fascists, he was one of the
most unsatisfactory of mortals."

"The diplomatic situation was unfavourable.
Other men than he might have made a mess of
things in Paris/*

89

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"Why, then, was the feeling in Italy so bitter?
Considering the victors in the war objectively, it
can certainly be maintained that Italy was the only
one who not merely conquered her chief enemy,
but annihilated that enemy/*

"We know that."

Seeing that I could get no farther along this line,
I returned to the question of the Socialist attitude
during the war, hoping that that would provide a
stimulus.

"Really your own case resembled that of your
country," said I. "You were the only man who anni-
hilated his own particular foe. But what does that
prove against the system, if during the years from
1918 to 1921 the socialist leaders were weaklings?
Were not some of your generals incompetent during
the war, and yet your troops were victorious?"

"Some. But still there was a mass movement!"

"And was this mass movement to be fought only
with its own means? The burning of Avanti, the
destruction of the telegraphic apparatus were not
these Russian tactics?"

"Much the same. Our tactics were decidedly Rus-

sian/ 3

This curt, military style of answering was unusual
in him, but to-day it was a manifestation of fatigue,

90

ON THE ROAD TO POWER
and perhaps in conformity with the military trend
of his thoughts at the moment. I tried to give the
conversation a new turn.

"Is it true that in the year 1921 you were in-
clined to renounce the leadership of your youthful
party?"

"No," he snapped, as ungraciously as before. "I
told them they must accept my ideas or I should
quit. It was necessary to transform a mob into a
party. 55

"Why did you hold back for a year when many
of your followers wanted to take instant action?"

"It would have been a mistake/ 5

"I have been told by a friend of mine that when,
at that date, you visited the Wilhelmstrasse, you said:
*At this juncture there are only two parties in Italy,
myself and the King! 5 55

"That's all right. 55

"And when subsequently, in the autumn of 1922,
you sent your conditions to the Facta administra-
tion, were you confident that he would reject
them? 55

"Certainly. Wanted to gain time. 55

"What do you think of generals who break their
oath of allegiance to an established government in
order to make a revolution and set up a new one

91

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
like the four who participated in your March on
Rome?"

"In certain historical crises that must happen. 55

"Your proclamation was printed before you set
out. Hadn't you the feeling that you were fore-
stalling things?"

"There wasn't a moment to lose."

"How do you account for the fact that there
was no resistance to your March on Rome? It was
just like what happened in Germany on November
9, 1918."

"Same reasons; obsolete system."

"I have been told that the King had already signed
an ordinance declaring a state of siege."

"The ministers had decided on this course, but the
King refused to sign, even when pressed to do so a
second time."

"Suppose the King had agreed, and a state of siege
had been declared, would you have felt sure of
victory even in the case of resistance?"

"We held the valley of the Po and it is there that
the fate of Italy has always been decided."

"How could you, a soldier, be content during
those last weeks to stay so far from the centre of
action?"

"I was in command at Milan."
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ON THE ROAD TO POWER

"When you received the King's telegram asking
you to take over the government, were you sur-
prised or had you expected it?"

"Expected."

"When on your way to Rome, were you in the
mood of an artist who is about to begin his work,
or in that of a prophet who is fulfilling a mission?"

"Artist/ 9

He was too laconic for my taste, and so, in the
hope of bringing about a little relaxation, I had re-
course to an anecdote.

"Do you remember what Napoleon said to his
brother when they entered the Tuileries after the
coup d'etat? 'Well, here we are. Let's see to it that
we stay here!' "

It was a palpable hit. Mussolini laughed. The spell
the bank directors had laid upon his nerves was
broken. His customary serenity had returned, so
that he could speak once more in his usual voice and
formulate his views at reasonable length. When I
went on to question him about his personal, his
mental preparation for the role of leadership, he
thrust the thick balance sheet aside, laid his arms on
the table in front of him, and then became reminis-
cent.

"I was prepared as far as broad lines were con-

93

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

earned, but not in matters of detail. To begin with,
I was overburdened with work. Within forty-eight
hours I had to get fifty-two thousand revolutionary-
soldiers out of the capital and to see to it that these
excited young men were held in leash. During the
first days the most important affair was to keep the
machinery running. But I, who had to do this,
lacked first-hand knowledge of the machinery of
administration. I promptly dismissed some of the
leading officials, but I left a great many of them
where they were. It was incumbent upon me to
convince the most important civil servants, during
the very first weeks, that we were not to be trifled
with. They were a danger to me but at the outset I
had to trust them."

"That," I said, "was what took all the fire out of
the German revolution. The old permanent officials
were stronger than the new leaders and humbugged
them. But how does one begin a new regime? Is it
like setting up a monument, or building a house in
the forest, when one begins by clearing a lot of
trees to make room?"

"That is an interesting simile," he said alertly.
"Most revolutions begin with a hundred per cent.,
but little by little the new spirit evaporates, becomes
diluted with the old. Concessions are made, now

94

ON THE ROAD TO POWER
here, now there; and before long your revolution
has declined to fifty per cent., or less. 55

"That is what happened in Germany/* I inter-
jected.

"We did it the reverse way. I began with fifty per
cent. "Why? Because history had taught me that the
courage of most revolutionists begins to fail after
the first alarums and excursions. I started with a
coalition and it was six months before I dismissed
the Catholics. In other countries, revolutionists have
by degrees become more complaisant; but here in
Italy, year by year, we have grown more radical,
more stubborn. Not until last year, for instance, did
I insist upon the university professors swearing
allegiance. I took the democrats as I found them and
I gave the Socialists the opportunity of participating
in the government. Turati, who died yesterday,
would perhaps have agreed to this, but Baldesi and
other men of his sort obstinately refused their
chances. Since I had planned a complete renovation
of my country, I had to accustom it gradually to the
new order of things and to make use of the out-
standing forces of the old order. The Russians were
in a different position. The old order had utterly
collapsed and they could clear the ground com-
pletely in order to build their house in the forest.

95

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
But where should we have been to-day if I had set
out by making a clean sweep?"

He was full of vivacity once more, all signs of
fatigue having vanished.

"Your enemies gave you a helping hand/* I said,
"by marching out of parliament. I suppose that
suited your book and that you had looked forward
to it?"

"Of course!" he exclaimed. "They had with-
drawn to the Sacred Mount, and that is a hill which
brings misfortune to all who climb it."

"In the army," I said, "in the course of the rev-
olution you have made, did you find more good
will and talent to begin with or later?"

"Later. To-day people have faith in it!"

"Did you anticipate this? Did you expect to sit
ten years or longer at this table?"

He made a whimsical grimace, rolling his eyes as
if to inspire fear, but laughing at the same time as
if to counteract the impression. Then he said, in low
tones, and assuming a playful air of mystery:

"I came here in order to stay as long as possible."

96

PART THREE

THE PROBLEMS OF POWER

THE MANAGEMENT OF MEN

H,

JS equanimity, his imperturbable patience,
had been fully restored, when, next day at the same
hour, I found him at his writing table. In the interim
I had been mentally rehearsing the activities in
which I supposed him to have been engaged, the
ordinary routine of his daily life. When staying with
friends in the country I have sometimes asked my-
self what has been happening to them between our
good-night and our greeting when we meet next
day at luncheon. The same general aspect, the same
clothing, and yet each one of us has grown a day
older and has had intervening experiences, perhaps
ordinary, perhaps extraordinary. Mussolini, whom
now for several days in succession I had encountered
in his office, wearing the same suit of clothes, was
engaged in multifarious activities during the period
that elapsed between our interviews; yet each time
he seemed, as it were, screwed into the place where he
awaited me. An editorial office, with its comings and

99

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
goings and its lively discussions, is a much more
animated place than a ministerial office. Perhaps no
chance experience, nothing unexpected, had be-
fallen him. These reflections influenced my method
of approach.

"Although your rise to power has brought you
many advantages, it must have cost you a good deal
as well. It must have cost you the pleasure of living
in a familiar home, the power to walk whithersoever
you please in the evening after an exciting day, the
perpetual stimulus of opposition, the enthralling
freedom of being unfair on occasion. At the same
time it must have entailed upon you the duties of a
representative position and the difficulties that
attach to a man who can never escape the public
gaze. I have been told that soon after the March on
Rome you penned an effective phrase: 'One can
move from a tent into a palace if one is ready, in
case of need, to return to the tent/ Still, it seems
to me that such a change of habit must be difficult
for a man of forty or thereabouts."

"The change was easier than you imagine," an-
swered Mussolini. "I should have liked to go on
living in Milan; but Rome, a city to which I had be-
fore paid only occasional visits, exerted an emotional
charm. This historical soil has a magic of its own.

100

THE MANAGEMENT OF MEN
The fact that I am at work in Rome, that I live in
Rome, has during the last ten years given me food
for much thought. "When I want privacy, I have the
garden of the Villa Torlonia, where I live; and the
fact that I keep a fine horse there is the chief boon
which the rise to power has bestowed upon my
private life. Nor have I changed my daily habits
much. I have become more temperate than ever,
more inclined towards vegetarianism, and I rarely
drink wine. Still, these habits are not with me a
matter of strict principle and I actually encourage
the drinking of wine in Italy. I have always
been averse to the distractions of what is termed
'society. 5 When I have been working all day with
others at this table, I have a better use than 'social
diversions* for my evenings, in which I go on work-
ing alone, and for my nights, when I need sleep. I
have always been an orderly and meticulously
regular sort of man. "When I was a newspaper editor,
my writing table was just as tidy as this one, and
every minute of my day was planned out so that I
could cram as much work into it as possible."

"You describe a Goethean technique," I replied.
"One of the ambassadors in Rome recently said to
me, somewhat naively, e The Duce has an easier time
than we; he does not need to go into society. Had I

101

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
his advantage in this respect, I could get through
much more work than I do/ "

He laughed, and went on:

"I was prepared for my present position by a life
that has always been lonely. I cannot live in any
other way. My only trouble has been that I have
always been sensitive to bad weather. But you are
right in this respect, that reasons of state tend to
make the statesman's life a narrow one. Just because
they are reasons of State!"

"It is strange, 5 ' I said, "how many things the
wielding of power teaches a man to renounce."

"Like every passion," he said gently.

"Which passion is stronger, the revolutionary
or the constructive?"

"Both are interesting," he answered swiftly. "It
depends, moreover, upon the age at which one is
engaged upon revolution or construction, as the
case may be. A man of forty or fifty will incline
rather towards constructive work, especially when
he has had a revolutionary past/*

"In that respect," said I, "your career differs from
those which it otherwise most resembles. Bismarck,
like Victor Emmanuel, did not reach his Rome so
early as you. To both of them the great opportunity
came after the years in which a man has done the

102

THE MANAGEMENT OF MEN
bulk of his work. But what you say about the con-
structive trend in middle age makes it all the more
difficult to understand why, after ten years of con-
struction, you Fascists are still talking of a per-
manent revolution. It reminds me of Trotsky's
theory."

"The reasons are different, however. We need to
speak of permanent revolution because the phrase
exerts a mystical influence upon the masses. It is
stimulating, too, for persons of higher intelligence.
When we talk of permanent revolution, we imply
that the times are exceptional, and we give the man
in the street a feeling that he is participating in an
extraordinary movement. The actual fact is that
construction began right away. Not that it was easy!
Thousands of ardent soldiers had to be reconverted
into orderly citizens. A revolution can indeed be
made without the aid of soldiers but it cannot be
made in defiance of soldiers. It is possible when the
army is neutral but not when the army is antago-
nistic. Besides, during the first year, I had to rid my-
self of a hundred and fifty thousand Fascists in
order to make the party a more concentrated force.
Not until later could I begin to train an elite in
order to transform crude force into orderly gov-

ernment."

103

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"Where did you encounter the greatest resistance
in this respect? Did the nobility prove refractory?"

Whenever a fresh theme of the sort was in-
troduced a theme which he must have rehearsed
a hundred times he would thrust forward his
chin for a moment, like a conductor using his baton,
and would speak more quickly than usual.

"Resistance came mainly from the upper classes,
but not from the 1 aristocracy. Our titled families
proved friendly. Here in Italy they do not form a
caste apart, like the Prussian Junkers, but want to be
on good terms with the people. You will see Prince
Colonna, for instance, talking familiarly with his
coachman."

I spoke of his sometime comrades, asked him
whether he had been able to find suitable posts for
them all, and whether, in general, he promoted men
of marked ability regardless of the question of pre-
cedence.

"My former comrades," he replied, "were given
leading positions insofar as they were fit for them.
Seniority does not concern us, whether in the front
ranks or the rear, but in general we give the
preference to youth. I was prompt to put able young
men in responsible positions. I had watched Grandi,
Stefani, Volpi, Gentile, and others at work, had

104

THE MANAGEMENT OF MEN
conversed with them freely. I am delighted when
such men act on their own initiative/*

"Such men/* I said, "can more readily be super-
vised when they are in high positions than in low.
But what do you do when one of your aides casts
doubts upon the trustworthiness of another? What
means have you for deciding whether an official is
loyal or disloyal? How can you avoid being cheated
by those who are playing for their own hand? How
do you discover the secret aims of some one newly
appointed to office?"

Mussolini fidgeted a little in his chair. No doubt
after spending many hours in conversation with his
underlings, he is apt to feel restless, but never once
did he get up to walk about during our talks. I saw
that now he was turning my questions over and
over in his mind and ranging them in order before he
replied.

"In front of this writing table there are two
adjoining chairs, in one of which you are now sitting.
If there is a dispute between two officials, I summon
them both to these chairs and make them unfold
their grievances as they sit opposite to me, equidis-
tant, and compelled to look at each other while
they do so. If suspicion falls on any one in the employ
of the State or the Party, I give him a chance of

10J

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

defending himself here by word of mouth, provided
that the matter is not a grave one. In more serious in-
stances, he has to write out his defence. Sometimes
I keep an eye on the private life of my people, study
their handwriting, and always take their physiog-
nomy into account, when I wish to draw conclusions
as to their trustworthiness. My motto in these
matters has invariably been to listen patiently and
to decide justly. In the case of a newcomer, my first
question is not how he can help me, but what ad-
vantage he is seeking when he applies to me."

I asked him how he protected himself against false
information and against the betrayal of secrets.

"The important offices in the country are for the
most part held by trustworthy Fascists. If loyalty
does not suffice to make them run straight, there is
the powerful motive of fear in addition, for they
know that they are being watched. The penalty for
betrayal is formidable, but has very seldom to be
inflicted, for I do not allow documents of moment
to pass through many hands."

"But how do you safeguard yourself against the
most dangerous persons of the modern world
against the experts?"

"As far as experts are concerned," he rejoined,
"I generally summon two rivals to sit in these chairs

106

THE MANAGEMENT OF MEN
and expound their projects. Of course a financial or
military expert may demand from me, as chief of
the government, a decision upon some matter con-
cerning which I am not sufficiently well informed.
In such a case, my only resource is to do my utmost
to master the topic. As far as externals are con-
cerned, our business is facilitated by the speed at
which we work. Needless formalities and red tape
were scrapped the very first day I came into power."

He handed me a document.

"Here you will see a report from the Minister for
Agriculture, and my notes on it, which will go back
to him for examination. You know that we have
done away with hand-shaking? The Roman greeting
is more hygienic, more tasteful, and wastes less

time."

After the discussion of these externals, I turned
to psychological problems, asking:,

"How do you bind people to you most closely,
by honour or by money? By praise or by material
advantages? By force or by persuasion? Moreover, is
it possible for the chief of the State, in a country
where freedom of the press does not exist, to make
himself acquainted with the mood which prevails
throughout the country?"

At the last inquiry, he knitted his brows and

107

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
looked at me suspiciously, as if wondering who could
have prompted me to introduce this thorny
question. With him, during our talks, such un-
easiness was never more than momentary. Any one
with whom he has agreed to discuss matters freely
will find it easy enough to stand fire for a second or
two, for then his brow will clear and he will give a
tranquil answer.

"I have been able to bind men to me more closely
by honour and by persuasion than by money or by
force. I use praise with moderation, for praise is
certainly a stimulus, but it is one which speedily
loses its effect. In all countries, truth lies at the
bottom of a well. One has to plumb the well and
discover how deep it is. I deny, however, that
freedom of the press makes it easier to ascertain the
truth or, indeed, that freedom of the press
exists anywhere. Nowadays, where the press is
nominally free, economic or political interests are
really in control of the newspapers. I have various
sources of information: prefects, ministers, private
citizens. Perhaps the truth comes to me more slowly,
but it comes in the end."

"The whole truth?" I interrupted.

"No one ever learns the whole truth. But there
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THE MANAGEMENT OF MEN
are many signs to disclose the general mood. Before
all, I trust my own insight, what I call my 'sixth
sense/ It is indefinable."

"Nevertheless," I said, "a good many cases have
shown that truth sometimes filters through to you
very slowly. You say that the integrity of your
officials is the basis of state life. In Russia cases of
corruption are discovered. Don't you think that
public trials after the Russian manner may be use-
ful? What do you think of the Russian plan of pay-
ing ministers of state as little as possible as if in
the Republic of Plato? 5 *

"Our ministers receive from three to four thou-
sand lire a month, which is less than the salaries paid
in most democratic countries. Misconduct on the
part of officials is punished here as severely and as
publicly as in Russia. A Fascist who is detected in
misconduct will make away with himself. The Party
secretary in Leghorn blew out his brains because
he had embezzled funds. The mayor of San Remo
shot himself in the catacombs; the manager of the
civil engineering works at Naples drowned himself:
both of them merely because they had been sum-
moned to come to see me, although not proved
guilty. From what I read about corruption in demo-

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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
cratic States, I do not think that we have any cause
to complain. There is no form of government which
can eradicate human fallibility."

Turning to a more personal matter, I asked him
how, in view of his knowledge of human nature, he
dealt with himself.

"Although you say that you have a synthetic
mind, I regard you as primarily analytical. Tliis
combination is not an infrequent one. I assume,
therefore, that you devote a good deal of attention
to the thought of your adversaries. But what do you
do when you have yourself made a mistake? Do you
find it preferable to make an open acknowledgment
and to better your ways or do you incline to maintain
the semblance of infallibility? Bismarck said that
circumstances sometimes arise in which a statesman
must have the courage to say, 'To-morrow it will
rain/ If he has made a lucky guess, he will be ac-
counted a great man."

"We make no claims to infallibility here," said
Mussolini. "I may be guilty of twenty mistakes but
I acknowledge them all. The situation is continually
changing under the pressure of circumstances, how-
ever much insight one may have into the actions and
reactions of one's adversaries."

"Speaking generally, do you find that in this
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THE MANAGEMENT OF MEN
game you hoodwink others more often, or they
you?"

He picked up a pencil and, on a piece of paper,
sketched a figure throwing a cone of shadow. Then
he said, rather to himself than to me:

"There is always an unknown factor. That is the
umbra/ 5

After saying this, he sat with bowed head in the
lamplight, with the sharp point of his pencil applied
to one of the corners of his sketch, as if holding it
in its place* He did not, as many would have done
after such an interlude, crumple up the piece of
paper and throw it into the waste-paper basket, but
merely pushed it aside, and then looked up at me
with that searching glance which Homer speaks
of as MSea id&v. Always when Mussolini has re-
vealed even the slightest glimpse of his inner life, he
changes the conversation; or, in the case of our
talks, whose guidance he had left in my hands, he
awaited a new question. This was what I asked.

"Why do you, even you, make use of the formula:
'There is no such thing as the impossible'? You know
better!"

"If you are not continually hammering that
phrase into indolent people's minds, they will go
to sleep and will say to themselves, even regarding

111

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

easy and simple matters, that these are impossible."

"Yet it seems to me," I countered, "that that is
only applicable as an argumentum ad, feminam"

"Nothing of the sort!" he exclaimed. "Women
exert no influence upon strong men."

I returned to the question of his own way of
managing men and asked him how he protected him-
self against continual interruptions and whether he
allowed himself to be awakened at night when there
was important news.

"As to interruptions, I protect myself by the
method of starvation. I only let them awaken me at
night when there is bad news; good news can wait
till mornine. I think I have been called up at night
only thrice in ten years: when the post office in Rome
was burned down; when the members of our special
mission in Albania were assassinated; and when the
Queen Dowager was taken ill."

"Do you find that there are special circumstances
or special times in which you are exceptionally pro-
ductive?"

"When I am afoot," he answered. "I often walk
up and down my room for a couple of hours before
coming to a decision or formulating a statement.
My ideas flow most freely in the evening, especially
towards midnight. But when does one have ideas?

112

THE MANAGEMENT OF MEN
A man in my position must be stupid at least once
a week, or must seem so. On such days I learn a great
deal. Inspiration? If one is lucky, that comes once or
twice a year."

113

INFLUENCING THE MASSES

HE Piazza di Venezia was crowded with twenty
thousand people; a dozen bands vied with one an-
other; the songs, the shouts of the crowd reechoed on
all hands. It was a Fascist festival, and the "black
shirts" wanted to see their leader. The Palazzo,
usually a quiet place, plunged in dreams of the past,
had to-day been accessible to me only with the aid
of an officer; it was crowded with men in uniform
who thronged the staircase and the halls.

In the great room where we were accustomed to
hold our conversations, the Duce sat alone, also in
uniform. A king once said to me that when he was
in uniform his thoughts were different from when
he was in mufti; he meant that they were weaker.
I myself have noticed that an officer who is alone
among civilians feels dressed up and therefore in-
commoded, just as a civilian isolated among a
hundred wearers of uniform finds his position
anomalous. Nor have I. ever heard two officers in
uniform talking philosophy to each other, any more

11J

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
than I have ever seen two thinkers sparring with
their fists; although there is no insuperable reason
against either happening.

Mussolini, different though he looks in uniform,
was the same man as far as concerned his mental
outlook. Since the noise in the square and the sense
of expectancy made a continuance of our ordinary
conversation impossible, I began to talk to him
about Abyssinia.

"But I must be going, 55 1 said suddenly, pulling
myself up. "You will have to make a speech in a

moment/ 5

"Go on with what you were saying, 5 ' he replied,
and we walked to and fro in the room until an
officer came to inquire whether the windows on the
balcony should be thrown open. Mussolini put on
his cap, told me to watch from the adjoining
window, and to come back to him when the
demonstration was concluded. He had not a minute
left in which to think over the speech he was about
to make. As, in response to the reiterated clamour
from the crowd, he stepped forth on the veranda, I
noted in his profile the paternal, contented expres-
sion which he exhibits when he is talking of con-
structive work. As he looked for a moment upon
the throng beneath, he resembled a playwright who

116

INFLUENCING THE MASSES

comes into a theatre and finds the actors impatiently
waiting for him to superintend the rehearsal.

Suddenly, at a sign from him, the noise in the
square was stilled, his features became tense, and
with a vigorous impetus, in staccato fashion, he flung
his first words at the auditors. He uttered no more
than about thirty sentences, the last of which was
followed by renewed acclamation. When the
windows had been closed there were heard through
the doors of the hall rhythmical calls of "Duce!
Duce!" He ordered these doors to be opened and in
rushed about sixty Fascist officers who assembled
round his writing table. They were the secretaries
of the Party from all quarters of Italy. There was
no ceremonial reverence nor even formality to in-
terfere with a friendly reception. In his soft, low-
pitched voice, Mussolini began to address each of
them, not by name, but by the name of the town
from which he came, pointing to the person con-
cerned. Occasionally he hesitated and had to ask
which was which; but most of them he recognised
without difficulty. They all looked to him as to a
father, although some of them must have been as
old as himself. Then, when he wished to dismiss them
with the Roman greeting, one of them called out,
"Duce! A photograph!"

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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
He smiled, a servant fetched the photographer
whom his Fascist officers had brought along, they
grouped themselves in the middle of the hall, some
of them wheeling up the two easy-chairs that stood
in front of the writing table, to stand on them be-
hind their fellows. A flashlight photograph was
taken. Everything was done with the utmost cheer-
fulness, amid quips and jests, an attitude of full
confidence of the subordinates in the chief, and
perhaps also of the chief in the subordinates. At
length, amid renewed singing and shouts of acclama-
tion, the secretaries withdrew from the hall.

Mussolini went back to his desk but stood for a
minute or two in front of the fireplace. Seeing on
the floor an order which one of his visitors had
dropped, he picked it up and thereafter sat down
in his usual place. Having rung, as soon as the
servant entered the door, he called across the sixty
feet to ask where I was. At that I emerged from the
deep window niche in which I had been standing out
of sight. He smiled at me; while the thought flashed
across my mind, how easily any one hidden away
as I had been might have assassinated htm. It is
untrue to say that the Duce is watched like a tsar.
Although his speech from the window and his re-
ception of the secretaries had intervened, he wished,

118

INFLUENCING THE MASSES

just as if nothing had happened, to resume our con-
versation precisely where it had been broken off half
an hour before. He asked me to continue what I had
been saying about Abyssinia. I was refractory, how-
ever; spoke of what I had been witnessing; and
added:

"I myself have been moved by the significance of
these two scenes. I should very much like to know
what they mean to you."

"A proof of enthusiasm," he answered shortly.

"Nevertheless," I went on, "you have written
harsh words about the masses; you have declared
that His Holiness the People must be dragged down
from His altar. There was another time, if I re-
member aright, when you said, 'We do not believe
that the crowd can reveal any mystery to us/ But
if the masses give you no revelation, how can they
have any effect on you? Without mutuality, I can-
not conceive of any exchange of influence between
one man and twenty thousand. Fascism has been de-
fined as an expansion and a tension. Can you expect
these from the masses? And how long will such
emotions last?"

Mussolini leaned back into the shadows; and, as
the chains and the orders he wore ceased to glitter,
I once more discerned the thinker of whom I was in

119

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
search. The subdued ardour which radiates from
him in his strong moments made itself felt. He
seemed to be pondering some generalisation that
would serve in place of a direct answer, for there
was a pause before he slowly began to explain his
thought.

"For me the masses are nothing but a herd of
sheep, so long as they are unorganised. I am nowise
antagonistic to them. All that I deny is that they are
capable of ruling themselves. But if you would lead
them, you must guide them by two reins, enthusiasm
and interest. He who uses one only of these reins is
in grave danger. The mystical and the political
factors condition each other reciprocally. Either
without the other is arid, withered, and is stripped
of its leaves by the wind. I cannot expect the masses
to face the discomforts of life; that is only for 6 the
few. Therein will you find the mutuality to which
you referred just now. To-day I spoke only a few
words to those in the Piazza. To-morrow millions
will read them, but those who actually stood there
have a livelier faith, in what they heard with their
ears, and, if I may say so, heard with their eyes.
Every speech made to the crowd has a twofold
object, to clarify the situation and to suggest some-
thing to the masses. That is why speeches made to

120

INFLUENCING THE MASSES
the people are essential to the arousing of enthusiasm
for a war/*

"Perhaps you are the greatest living expert in this
art of influencing the masses/' said L "But what
about those who are not bound to the movement by
any special interest?"

"They have hopes and the conviction that they
are serving a great cause. I have known the masses
for thirty years. In Milan I could empty the streets!
There, they called me Barbarossa."

Never before had I heard Mussolini vaunt any
of his achievements; but there was a proud ring in
his voice when he spoke the words: "I could empty
the streets."

"What part does music play in influencing the
masses? What part do women play, and gestures, and
emblems?"

"They are all spectacular elements," he replied in
the same vibrant tone. "Music and women allure the
crowd and make it more pliable. The Roman greet-
ing, songs and formulas, anniversary commemora-
tions, and the like all are essential to fan the
flames of the enthusiasm that keeps a movement in
being. It was just the same in ancient Rome."

"What do you think of Coriolanus?" I asked,
prompted by his last remark.

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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

He smiled without looking at me; paused for a
considerable time (a thing he rarely did before
answering) ; and then replied briefly:

"A legendary figure! Shakespeare's play is the
best print of the legend."

Since this was no more than an adroit evasion, I
thought it better to have a complete change of
subject,

"You have told me that you prepare your speeches
months in advance. What difference does the sight
of the masses make in them?"

"It is like the building of American houses," an-
swered Mussolini. "First of all the skeleton is set up,
the steel framework. Then, as circumstances may
demand, the framework is filled in with concrete or
with tiles or with some more costly material I
already have the girder skeleton ready for my speech
at our next October festival. It will be the atmos-
phere of the Piazza, the eyes and the voices of the
thousands who will be present to hear me, which will
decide me whether to finish off the edifice with
travertin or tiles or marble or concrete or all of
them together."

I was much impressed by this metaphor drawn
from his sometime occupation as a mason. Lenin,
I said, must have fashioned his speeches in much the

122

INFLUENCING THE MASSES
same way; and Mussolini extolled Lenin's capacity
for disciplining the masses.

"The Fascists," I went on, "talk a great deal about
discipline. In Germany, we have had rather too
much of it. We have been studying you Italians for
the last thirty years and are afraid that your
shoulders are not strong enough for the burden.
Discipline may make you less happy and perhaps
deprive you of your charm."

This pricked him and he turned vigorously from
the defensive to the offensive.

"You may say that you have had too much dis-
cipline in your own land, but let me tell you, though
we are not trying to transform Italy into a replica of
pre-war Prussia, we want to make our country as
strongly disciplined as was yours. Our conception
of the nation is synthetic, not analytic. One who
marches in step with others is not thereby dimin-
ished, as you and your friends are fond of saying;
he is multiplied by all those who move shoulder to
shoulder with him. Here, as in Russia, we are ad-
vocates of the collective significance of life and we
wish to develop this at the cost of individualism.
That does not mean that we go so far as to think of
individuals as mere figures upon a slate, but that we
think of them chiefly in relation to the part they

123

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
have to play in the general life of the community.
Herein may be recognised a very remarkable ad-
vance in national psychology, for it has been made
by one of the Mediterranean peoples, who have
hitherto been considered unfitted for anything of
the kind. A sense of the collectivity of life is the
new spell that is working among us. But, after all,
were things different in classical Rome? In the days
of the old Roman republic, the life of the citizen
was at one with the life of the State; and when,
under the emperors, a change took place in this
respect, it marked the beginning of the decline and
fall. You see, then, what we Fascists want to make
out of the masses. We want to organise their col-
lective life; to teach them to live, to work, and to
fight in a great fellowship but in a hierarchy, not
in a mere herd. We want the humanity and the
beauty of a communal life. We know that foreign-
ers are puzzled by us! The individual is, in a sense,
taken away from the family as early as the age of
six and is restored to it at the age of sixty. Believe me,
the individual loses nothing thereby, but is multi-
plied!"

He had become more vivacious than customary,
for he was dilating upon his favourite thought. We
had reached the barrier which separates an ardent

124

INFLUENCING THE MASSES
individualist from Rome as from Moscow. There
was no occasion for me to intrude my own notions
on the subject. He had read them. What expectation
could I have of modifying the fundamental con-
ceptions of such a leader as Mussolini, who for ten
years had been passionately striving to realise them?
I merely said, therefore:

"Young people to-day have enthusiastically es-
poused these ideas and not in Rome only! But
there are many of us who would rather not be
multiplied in any such fashion. Besides, if you quote
classical Rome as a model, if you think that the
masses are unchanged, what becomes of what is
known as progress?"

"A hard word to define," answered Mussolini,
this time in a rather chilly tone. "Perhaps 'progress*
is a spiral. Sorel categorically denied that there was
any such thing as moral progress, contending that
the only progress was mechanical. I differ from him,
for I believe that moral progress really takes place,
though it is exposed to great dangers. The pace is
slow and even at that slow pace men often grow
weary. Moreover, what is progress? .In imperial
Rome there were poets and philosophers. There were
splendid institutions for the promotion of public
health."

125

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

Opening his portfolio, he took from it a sheet of
paper which he handed me to read. On it were in-
scribed figures showing how many public baths and
drinking fountains there were in Rome during the
third century A.D.

"But no Marconi," I said, "the physicist whose
recent discoveries save thousands every year by
death from drownings."

"No, Marconi did not then exist," he answered
curtly; and once more I recognised how barren was
this ancient controversy, seeing that each one of us
attaches his own meaning to the term "human
progress." I therefore reverted to the question of
the crowd.

"You wrote once that the masses ought not to
know, but to believe. Do you still regard this prin-
ciple of the Jesuits as practicable to-day, amid all
the advances of modern technique?" He set his jaw
resolutely as he answered:

"It is faith that moves mountains, not reason.
Reason is a tool, but it can never be the motive force
of the crowd. To-day less than ever. To-day people
have not so much time to think as they used to have.
The capacity of the modern man for faith is illimit-
able. When the masses are like wax in my hands,
when I stir their faith, or when I mingle with them

126

INFLUENCING THE MASSES
and am almost crushed by them, I feel myself to be
a part of them. All the same, there persists in me
a certain feeling of aversion, like that which the
modeller feels for the clay he is moulding. Does not
the sculptor sometimes smash his block of marble
into fragments because he cannot shape it to repre-
sent the vision he has conceived? Now and then this
crude matter rebels against the creator! 5 *

After a pause he went on:

"Everything turns upon one's ability to control
the masses like an artist/ 5

127

THE DANGERS OF DICTATORSHIP

L,

LIBERTY!" said Mussolini in his low-pitched,
melodious voice. "Since you are continually re-
curring to this theme, let me tell you once more that
in our State the individual does not lack freedom.
He has more liberty than an isolated man, for the
State protects him and he is a part of the State*
The isolated man is not befriended and is, thereby,
forsaken."

"Yet as late as the year 1919, when you were
already a Fascist, you wrote some noteworthy words
regarding some of these acquirements of western
civilisation: 'Individual liberty, freedom of the spirit
which does not live by bread alone; a liberty higher
than that which prevails in the barracks of Lenin,
other than that known to the Prussian noncommis-
sioned officer for these are a return to the bar-
barism of the eleventh century/ "

He answered coldly, and in general terms:
"We have endeavoured to realise as much freedom
as is possible to-day/*

129

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"There would be one way in winch you could con-
vince the world of that/*

He looked at me inquiringly.

"If you, who for four years ruled amid opposition
and criticism, were now, after another six years, to
restore freedom of the press and to allow criticism a
free rein."

"Of course I could do that, but it would be futile.
It would not better the situation in any way. To-
day, as I have already said, the struggle lies in the
realm of things/*

Since I could make no progress in this direction,
I introduced the topic of Plato, and asked, since
Mussolini had frequently quoted Plato, what he
considered to have been Plato's attitude towards the
'State*. Turning in his chair, the Dictator picked up
a ponderous tome from an adjoining table, opened
It, and fluttered the leaves.

"It is interesting to note that Plato already had
a notion of the organisation of the State. Look!
Here it is! Warriors, priests, and workers, whom he
compares with the organs of the individual human
being: the warrior is the arm; the priest is the brain;
the worker is the belly.* 5

"Is the priest still the brain? 5 * I asked mis-
chievously.

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DANGERS OF DICTATORSHIP

Mussolini is as indifferent to such petty wiles as if
tie were some huge pachyderm.

"To-day society is far more complicated than it
was in Plato's time," he was content to rejoin.

Closing the thick volume, he leaned both arms on
it. There he sat, the Dictator, supported upon the
State of which he had assumed full control. He was
in a calm and possessive mood, finding me to-day
in full opposition, and quietly awaiting the enemy
attack*

"There is one thing," I said after a little, "with
whose existence in this State of yours you are per-
haps less acquainted than are we who look on from
outside. I mean the dread which many of your
citizens have of informers and talebearers. Their
activities arouse feelings of insecurity and hatred."

"Every society," he answered cheerfully, "needs
a certain proportion of citizens who have to be
detested. In this respect, certainly, we resemble the
Russians. But it was Jaures, the arch-Socialist, who
wrote in one of his books that if a revolution is to
maintain itself, it must be defended. He used that
argument to justify the French Revolution, in which
*la loi des suspected was placed on the statute book
a law thanks to which a presumed offender might
be sentenced merely on suspicion. Besides, it was a

131

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
German, Hegel, who declared that the 'people' was
that part of the nation which did not know what it
wanted."

"As far as politics are concerned," said I, "we
Germans will gladly make a present of Hegel to the
foreign world, especially to the Russians, who are so
fond of quoting him. For centuries we have had
experience of dictatorships in Germany, for many
of our most incompetent princes were dictators; and
not so very long ago Bismarck was dictator for
eight-and-twenty years. What happened when he
fell from power without having trained any suc-
cessor? A huge rock had been dislodged and where
it had stood the worms came to light."

"Nevertheless it was he who made Germany
great," said Mussolini, adding with a smile, "I think
I am quoting your own book!"

"Still," I said, "what makes us uneasy in face of
uncontrolled power is the dread of what will happen
when the man of power passes away. Do you know
what Bunsen said of Bismarck? That he had made
Germany great and the Germans small."

"Perhaps."

"Is dictatorship an Italian specific?" I went on.

Apparently I could not shake him from his mood
of combative repose.

132

DANGERS OF DICTATORSHIP

"Maybe. Italy has always been a country of out-
standing individuals. Here in Rome, venerable
Rome, there have been more than seventy dictator-
ships/'

"What a pity that man is mortal!" cried I. "When
you fell sick (it was in 1925, I think), you wrote
that everything had become problematical, for you
were irreplaceable/*

"That was seven years ago. Since then I have been
trying to train successors and have been putting
them to the test. There already exists a ruling class
of first-rate intelligence; for instance, Grandi,
Balbo, Botai, ArpinatL I need hardly tell you that
there are historical situations which are never re-
produced; or, if reproduced, recur only in a
mitigated form. One passes from the mystical to the
political, from epic to prose. An intelligent man
properly equipped with character can, represent
and govern a nation. I think, however, that there
will not be a second TDuce*; or that, if he appeared
upon the scene, Italy would not put up with him/*

"You remember,** I said, regarding him fixedly,
"that Goethe said: 'Genius is always unique*
but. . /*

Responding in kind to my intent gaze, he re-
peated my "but,** and said no more.

133

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

Grasping at the best way of saving the conversa-
tion from extinction, I asked:

"You think, then, that a dynasty would provide
the best safeguard?"

"Beyond question," he replied, with equanimity;
"a dynasty provides for continuity, supplies the
factor of automatic renewal. f Le roi est mart, vive
broil'"

"If it be true/* I said, "that Nitti, in the year 1920,
aspired to become president of an Italian republic,
do you suppose that he was shipwrecked on the rock
of Italian monarchical sentiment? In Germany we
had had kings for many centuries, but they dis-
appeared, one and all, in the course of a single week.
Italy is a much younger country and has had so
many republics."

"Only here and there, and episodically," replied
Mussolini briskly. "The whole of the south has been
used to monarchical rule for hundreds of years.
When Crispi broke away from Mazzini, he wrote in
a famous letter: 'Monarchy unifies the people, but
a republican system disintegrates it.' "

"The last of our kings," said I, "made use of re-
ligious belief to buttress their thrones. William II
and Francis Ferdinand were both of them convinced
champions of divine right and I cannot conceive

134

DANGERS OF DICTATORSHIP

of a king who does not believe in that doctrine/*
"I differ," replied Mussolini. "Nowadays a king
can reign as a sceptic/*

"Has the title of king ever allured you? 5 *
"That is a problem in which I have never had the
slightest interest/*

His answer was as indifferent as if I had asked him
about the design of the new postage stamp.

"In the year 1925 you charged the deputies who
withdrew to the Sacred Mount with wanting to
establish a republic, did you not?**

"They did not know what they wanted/*
"Still,** I continued, "it seems to me that you pro-
tected the throne. And did not the throne protect
you on another occasion?**

He reflected a while, in the thoughtful attitude
habitual in him when he rests his chin on his hands,
elbows on the table, looking downwards, and then
slowly raising his eyes towards the questioner. At
such times he manifests the restful seriousness of
the man of creative temperament whom one would
never deem an anarchist.

"Yes, yes, you are right. It is true enough that I
protected the throne. As a matter of simple duty,
I defend the throne; but at the same time I have a
great admiration for the King, I regard him, not

135

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
only as a patriot, but also as a highly cultured in-
dividual. It is likewise true that the monarch
has constitutionally and loyally supported my re-
gime/'

"Listening to you, I sometimes think that there
are still contented countries in the world. Yet there
are certain intellectual circles in which grave dis-
satisfaction prevails. Here in Italy, I mean. Those
of whom I am thinking rail against you as the arch-
Fascist. Yesterday I received a letter which might
give you cause for discouragement. It was written
by a man of letters. He said that truth was a rarity
in these times, and that liberty was nonexistent."

"A man of letters!" said Mussolini disdainfully.

"Did not you yourself say that the Fascist State
was fully entitled to prescribe the duties incumbent
upon its citizens?"

"If one sets out from certain principles," he
answered, "one must not shrink from the logical
consequences of these."

"Your logic is Napoleonic and I have nothing to
say against it. But what will your contemporaries in
general, what will posterity, think? Do you know
that millions of persons, down to this very day, base
their judgment of Napoleon's character upon the
fact that he had the Duke of Enghien shot?"

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DANGERS OF DICTATORSHIP

"An unfair judgment," said Mussolini, "the ex-
ecution of the Duke of Enghien was no more than
an episode which must not be magnified out of pro-
portion to the whole. Had that execution been
Napoleon's whole record, he would have been
blameworthy without qualification. Unquestion-
ably it would have been better had this fault not
been chargeable to his account. Still, in like manner,
one must not pass a harsh judgment upon Julius
Caesar for having had Vercingetorix put to death.
Of course his life story would have been a finer one
without this act of barbarism, but it is absurd to
hold so titanic a figure up to reproach because of one
such incident/ 5

"It is possible," I rejoined, "that such occurrences
are the outcome of autocracy. When all the power
of the State is concentrated in the hands of one man,
it may well happen that undesirable things take
place in despite of the autocrat's will. When I say
this, I am thinking of the murder of MateottL Don't
you think that such things are more likely to happen
in a dictatorship?"

"Political crimes," answered Mussolini quietly,
"happen just as often in democratic States. Yotj will
remember a notorious instance under Napoleon HI.
Since the establishment of the Third Republic in

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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

France, there have been many strange crimes com-
mitted by persons in authority. As for the youthful
German democracy, I think that during the ten
years or so of its existence there have been more such
incidents in Germany than in any other country."

138

PART FOUR

THE REGIONS OF POWER

"Dc

EUROPE

*O you think that there are good nations and
bad ones?"

My question remained hanging in the air, like a
little white cloud from a burst shrapnel. I watched
it drifting from my lips across the great writing
table to poise above his head. Had the walls of this
immemorial hall ever reechoed so strange, so absurd
a question? Would not the pope, who frequented it
for a time, have laughed at its absurdity? Yet per-
haps the inquiry was not so preposterous, after all,
for the answer to it forms part of the groundwork
of foreign policy if this be regarded from a more
comprehensive outlook than through the spectacles
of an ambassador who considers his own country to
be the best in the world and believes his own career
to be the main purpose for which his native land
exists!

Mussolini, certainly, did not laugh, nor did he
answer me crudely, as an imperialist would have
done. A disciple of Nietzsche, although he is him-
self a condottiere, he analyses problems.

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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"There are neither good nations nor bad ones,"
came the answer. "Still, there are people more at-
tractive than others. This is a subjective choice!"

"You think the value of a nation, that which
makes it attractive, is determined by victory in
war?"

"Not alone by victory," said Mussolini. "All the
same, victory is one of the elements of its value.
Victory counts for something! We see this on all
hands to-day. Every nation has shown its capacity
for sacrifice. Look at China! Who would have ex-
pected so self-sacrificing a resistance in that
quarter?"

"You have often declared that preparedness for
war is a proof of this capacity for self-sacrifice."

"A part of it, certainly," he interjected.

"I am well aware," I went on, "that at certain
times you have been intoxicated by victory. The war
of technique, which to us seems unheroic, is a thing
you contemplate emotionally, like the spectators at
a tournament. As regards the Great War, which for
those of my way of thinking, having been carried
on for years between two coalitions connected by
purely casual ties, eventuated in a mechanical and
unspiritual victory of the stronger coalition over
the weaker it seems to you that the stronger, per-

142

EUROPE

haps the braver, party was entitled to a laurel crown.
In poetical fashion, you extolled f la vittoria senza
misura.* But when, a few years later, you had risen
to power, and, in a treaty, were renouncing the third
zone of Dalmatia, you said in the Chamber: 'This is
the best treaty we can get/ A wise saying and a
manly one! Bismarck, who at one time likewise was
intoxicated by victory, said when his blood had
cooled that politics was the art of the possible."

"An excellent definition," interpolated Mussolini.

"Comparing your earlier utterance with your
later, I infer that during these ten years of power
your views and feelings have tended towards moder-

ation."

"I think so," he said in his tranquil, deep-toned
voice.

This was not the first time, in the course of our
talks, that I had brought Mussolini to the same turn-
ing point, and I think the development in question
is of more importance to Europe than all the work
he is doing for the internal upbuilding of Italy. I
know, of course, that such utterances to a private
individual like myself afford no guarantee. Still,
since I deduced his character from his resolves, from
resolves whicfi in this case are decisive for the lives
and actions of forty-two millions of persons, I did

143

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

my best to make him face up to the problem from
various aspects, inasmuch as it is a problem which
in the last analysis is not a matter either of neces-
sity or of utility, but a problem of character.

"These things cannot be systematised," continued
Mussolini, after a pause. "Systems are illusions and
theories are fetters. For instance, I regard the net-
work of treaties of friendship and agreement con-
cerning tariffs as greater guarantees of peace than
alliances on the grand scale and even than the League
of Nations."

"Treaties, too, are fetters/' I objected.

"Not a bit of it," he answered. "I once spoke of
treaties as chapters in history and denied that they
are epilogues. This view has nothing whatever to
do with Bethmann Hollweg's notorious "scrap of
paper/ It only means that the Paris treaties, like
hundreds of earlier treaties, can and must be modi-
fied."

"At the Disarmament Conference, Italy has been
making far-reaching proposals. Winston Churchill
(you told me once that you esteemed him highly)
has spoken of the huge French army as a guarantee
of peace. Do you agree?"

"On the contrary."

144

EUROPE

"Still, in Italy you train your children for war!"

"I prepare them for the struggle for life/* an-
swered Mussolini. "Also I prepare them for the
struggle of the nation."

"In Germany/' said I, "twenty-five years after
the Franco-German War, we were still, in our
schools, holding an annual commemoration of the
victory of Sedan. This ceremony kept the bitterness
of the French alive. To-day our sometime enemies
are doing the same thing as regards the Battle of the
Marne. Why do you continue such celebrations,
which can only mortify the foes of yesterday?"

"When we celebrate our entry into the war, on
May 24, 1915, we do not do so as a triumph over
the vanquished. This fact will give you the key to
my whole political attitude. For us the date is a
revolutionary landmark, seeing that then the people
came to a decision in defiance of the wishes of the
parliamentarians. It was really the beginning of the
Fascist revolution."

"It is hard for children to grasp the distinction.
Commemorations of victory enter into their blood.
Children are cruel to animals and for that reason
they are easily trained up to love war for its own
sake."

145

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"Blood!" he repeated cantankerously. "People
seem only to become aware that a war is in prog-
ress when blood flows. Have we not a tariff war to-
day? Every one buys Ford cars because they are
cheaper and while doing so every one curses
America/*

"You think, then, that a tariff war is a danger
to the world's peace?"

"That is why I am opposed to tariffs. I have not
raised them so much as other rulers. By building
these new Chinese walls, we are, in our 'enlightened*
twentieth century, going back to the Middle Ages,
to the era of the warring city States."

"Last summer President X., the chief of one of
the most powerful States in the world, said to me
that the crisis in which we are now involved was of
the same kind as those which have preceded it, and
would, like those, speedily pass."

"To my mind," said he, "it is something more
momentous than that, a crisis of the capitalistic sys-
tem. The whole system is at stake."

For some time my enthusiasm for truth and for
the rights of man had been stirring within me. Now,
seizing my chance, I said:

"If you really believe what you say, why don't
you found Europe? Napoleon tried to do so and so

146

EUROPE

did Briand. Well, Briand is dead and, paradoxically
enough, the mantle falls on your shoulders. You seem
more ready to accept the heritage than you were
five years ago. Your life history would make people
regard you seriously if you were to undertake this
great enterprise, for a man stands more firmly if,
when climbing to a great altitude, he Eas climbed
slowly. Mussolini as the founder of Europe! You
might become the leading figure of the twentieth
century!"

I dwelt at some length upon this topic, which for
me has become a religion. He contemplated me quiz-
zically and answered without enthusiasm:

"True, I am nearer to this idea than I was five
years ago. But the time is not yet ripe. The crisis
has first to be intensified. New revolutions will come
and it is as their sequel that the type of the Euro-
pean of to-morrow will be established/ 5

147

FOREIGN LANDS

HAD been to a first night at the opera and had
seen in the boxes more resplendent gowns and had
noted the flashing of more jewels than had been
visible in the opera houses of Paris and New York
of late years. The numberless cars, only half of
which could be parked in the square, the abundance
of liveried servants, the whole setting, seemed to
negate the notion that the world was sick of a fever.
Rome, to all appearance, was resolved to deny that
a social revolution was in progress. A few weeks
earlier I had been in the great opera house of Mos-
cow, where the singing and the acting were just as
good, where the dancing was better, and where the
stage was no less resplendent. In Moscow, snow was
falling on the boards (they were playing "Pique-
Dame") , whereas in Rome, Don Pasquale's garden
was bright with flowers.

The aspect of the Moscow theatre, with its audi-
ence of five thousand men and women, had an ef-

149

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

feet akin to that of the music of the scene with
the Commander in "Don Giovanni/' These people
clad mostly in drab garments, though here and there
a bright dress was visible, were craving for illusion,
as they sat looking on and listening to the orchestra,
in a sort of restrained tranquillity. They were all
under stress of the impending toil of the morrow,
and, when we emerged from the portals, there was
no press of cars in waiting; merely two or three hack
sledges hoping for a fare. It was by electric tram-
cars that the auditors made their way home, when
the immense reality of the contemporary situation
in Russia had swiftly effaced the imaginings aroused
by the opera.

Nevertheless the resemblances between the Ro-
man and the Muscovite system are so strong that I
told Mussolini about these two operas in order to
see what he would say. At first came some gener-
alities.

"Differences! We have private property, whereas
there is none in Russia. We have bitted and bridled
capitalism, but the Russians have abolished it. Here,
the Party is subordinate to the government; there,
matters are the other way about.'*

"Still," I said, "in Italy the Party and the govern-
ment are simultaneously incorporated in your own

150

FOREIGN LANDS

person; and in Russia under Lenin like conditions
obtained/ 5

"I don't deny the similarities/'

"Before the war/' I went on, "you wrote in
Avanti: 'Socialism is not an Arcadian and peace-
ful affair. "We do not believe in the sacredness of
human life/ Is not that Fascism?"

"Yes, it is the same thing/'

"You have also written: 'Unless Fascism were a
faith, how could it arouse the fire of enthusiasm?'
Is not that Communism?"

He nodded assent, saying, "Such kinships do not
trouble me."

"It follows, then, does it not, that the faith which
both you and the Russians demand and find dis-
tinguishes your respective systems from all others?"

"Yes," he said, "and more than that. In negative
matters as well we are like each other; both we and
the Russians are opposed to the liberals, to the demo-
crats, to parliament/*

"In 1919 or 1920 you wrote that Lenin had freed
Russia from the autocracy and you foretold that
some day that country would become the most pro-
ductive in all the world."

"Is not my prophecy already on the way to being
fulfilled?" asked Mussolini.

151

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"Lenin must have known you personally. I have
heard that he said to the Italians: 'Why did you lose
Mussolini?' "

"Yes, it is true that Lenin said that. I can't re-
member whether I met him in Zurich with the
others. You know that they were continually chang-
ing their names. We used all to argue a great deal
with one another."

"I wonder that you, with your anti-Slav tem-
perament, could get on with the Russians at
all!"

"Well/ 5 he said, "the Russians certainly find it
very hard to make themselves wholly comprehen-
sible. In their eagerness to reach the bottom of
things they are apt to tumble into confusion."

"In your youth," said I, "and when you were a
journalist, you used to philosophise a great deal with
your comrades. Don't you miss those discussions to-
day?"

"I cannot 'philosophise' any longer. I have to

act."

This answer was curt, low-toned, abrupt, and
definite; as if tapped out in the Morse code.

"When I was in Moscow recently," I continued,
"I was struck by two things in almost every one I
met work and hope* Is it the same here?"

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FOREIGN LANDS

"Much the same, but here we cannot find work
for everybody/*

"Nevertheless you have done wonderful things
with the aid of the unemployed. Our objections to
dictatorship are mitigated when we take note of
your constructive work/ 5

"It is interesting," he replied, "that one of our
own ablest engineers, Omodeo, who built the dam
for the great reservoir in the valley of the Tirso in
Sardinia, is now building a similar dam upon the
Dnieper."

"Symbolic," I replied. "You are building, im-
proving, constructing, just like the Russians. You
force the banks to support the factories and the fac-
tories to maintain the workers. I don't know whether
that should be called state Socialism. The name does

not matter."

"This is something which it is desirable you should
understand very clearly," said Mussolini. "The
Fascist State directs and controls the entrepreneurs,
whether it be in our fisheries or in our heavy indus-
try in the Val d'Aosta. There the State actually owns
the mines and carries on transport, for the railways
are state property. So are many of the factories. All
the same, this is not state Socialism, for we do not
want to establish a monopoly in which the State

153

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

does everything* "We term it state intervention. It is
all specified and defined in the Carta del Lavoro. If
anything fails to work properly, the State inter-

venes/*

"Is this development on the increase?" I asked.
"Will the capitalists continue to obey? 9 *

"Everywhere it is on the increase. The capitalists
will go on doing what they are told, down to the
very end. They have no option and cannot put up
any fight. Capital is not God; it is only a means to
an end/*

"The general impression I gather, is that you are
returning, if not to your starting point, at least to
the neighbourhood of your earlier notions.**

"Speaking generally, I am burning my boats,** he
replied. tc l make a fresh start; but I do not hesitate
to learn from my earlier experiences.**

Seeing that we had come to a deadlock in this
matter, I turned to the question of France.

"You spoke, not long ago, of the unlikelihood of
the establishment of a republic in Italy. Do you
think the republic is stabilised in France?'*

"The republic won the war. That is a firm foun-
dation.*'

"The French have been spoken of as the Chinese
of Europe, because they seem to shut themselves

154

FOREIGN LANDS

behind a wall and to ignore, more or less, what is
going on in the rest of the Continent. Yet they are
greatly stirred by thoughts of power and glory. How
do you account for the way in which the petty-
bourgeois spirit marches hand in hand with the
representative idea?"

"You are mooting a problem which is typical of
French psychology," said Mussolini. "On the indi-
vidual plane, the Frenchman is small; on the na-
tional plane, he is great. This is natural enough.
The French have centuries of unified national life
behind them and have had a succession of note-
worthy kings. We lack those memories in Italy."

"It seems to me that you personally have learned
a great deal from the French."

"Certainly! From Renan in philosophical prob-
lems; from Sorel in syndicalism and other topical
questions. But above all I have learned from the
French titan, Balzac!"

"Without any attempt to bridge the transition, I
said:

"The English have sometimes been called the Ro-
mans of modern days. You, as a modern Roman,
ought to have a considered opinion upon that point."

"The Romans of modern days? No. But they have
some of the qualities that were characteristic of the

155

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
ancient Romans: a genius for empire; tenacity; pa-

tience."

"I am surprised," said I, "to find that England is
so little loved here in Italy. Do you suppose that is
because the British are the strongest pillars of that
democracy which you repudiate?"

"It is not the English, in particular, who are un-
popular. Foreigners in general are disliked! All our
sympathies with the world outside Italy have waned.
A new movement such as ours makes short work of
traditional phrases. For half a century at least the
friendship between Italy and England has been a
catchword. We scrutinise the problem and inquire,
'Is there any substance in this alleged friendship?*
Then there is talk about the 'brotherhood of the
Latin nations/ Are the French 'Latins' and have they
shown any sense of fraternity with us? Such
revisions as these are altogether in the spirit of
Fascism*"

"Curiously enough, in the course of my travels
I have found you more popular in America than
anywhere else. In a hundred interviews I was asked:
'How do you like Mussolini?' Yet the Americans are
opposed to dictatorships in any form."

"You are wrong; the Americans have a dictator,"
he answered promptly. "The president is almost

156

FOREIGN LANDS

omnipotent, his power being guaranteed by the

constitution."

"True, he might be omnipotent."

"No, he actually is all-powerful."

"Last summer I had talks with both Hoover and
Borah. The difference between the two men in re-
spect both of character and political views is even
greater than appears at first sight. They differed, too,
about the war loans. Do you think that the United
States can agree to the annulment of these loans?"

"Not can but must!"

"There are three more questions I want to ask
you, questions that were continually being put to
me in America, **

"Companionate marriage, first of all, I suppose?"
he inquired.

I laughed, and he went on:

"A mere fallacy! It does not solve the problem.
A great puzzle, sexual relations, and neither civil
nor ecclesiastical marriage answers the riddle. Still,
taking it all in all, the old way is the best. Your
second question, no doubt, concerns prohibition?"

"Of course."

"The problem is thorny!" he said. "For my own
part, I am practically a teetotaller, but what is the
actual state of affairs? For untold ages men have

157

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

cultivated the grape and Have drunk wine until the
habit has become second nature, and then the Ameri-
cans come along and want to drive nature out with
a pitchfork. As a result, they have established an
alcoholism much worse than the old. What's your
third question?"

"Technical advances and the making of 'rec-
ords/ ** I replied. "I have never shared the highbrow
attitude of those men of letters who despise mechani-
cal progress. Some years ago, I read of your first
official tour in Sicily, when you drove your own car.
I was interested and attracted. Although, up to then,
I had been extremely sceptical about all that was
going on in Fascist Italy, I realised, of a sudden, that
your action was symbolical. It was obvious to me
that you wanted to give your people a demonstra-
tion of what guidance meant/*

With a nod he rejoined: "Most of the objections
to technical progress lack justification. This prod-
uct of the human mind has achieved great re-
sults. Where should we be without great ships, huge
iron bridges, tunnels, airplanes? Is man to become
retrogressive, to return to the bullock cart of an-
tiquity, when he has the motor car, which is so much
quicker, more convenient, and more dependable?
Where people err is in their perpetual endeavour

158

FOREIGN LANDS

to 'go one better 5 and to rival one another in sitting
longest on the branch of a tree or dancing longest
without a pause/*

"Doesn't it seem to you very remarkable that the
inhabitants of such a country as the United States,
where democracy has prevailed for a hundred and
fifty years, should have so little interest in political
aflfairs?" ;

"That only shows how capitalism destroys the
political instinct. The country in which capitalism
has reached its climax is the most unpolitical in the
world. Every four years the inhabitants arise from
their slumbers to get excited about some such ques-
tion as whether more liquor shall be drunk or less.
Then the defeated candidate wires congratulations
to the elected president. Fair play, perhaps; but it is
not political warfare/*

"Well," I said, "those conditions are peculiarly
American. But why, the world over, are there so
few capable statesmen at a moment when there
is such urgent need of them?"

"Because political life is to-day far more com-
plicated than it used to be. Furthermore, capitalism
has swallowed political interest. Now the world is
only interested in money. People think of nothing
but their own money and that of others. Vanished

159

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
are the days when all Europe paid close attention to
the speeches of Peel or Disraeli; or even to those of
Jaures and Clemenceau! "When political matters are
discussed on the wireless, they listen to a sentence
or two and then switch off. Nobody studies politics.
The people do not want to rule, but to be ruled,
and to be left in peace. Were there more great states-
men in Europe, there would be less partisanship."

I questioned him about Germany, comparing the
Germans and the Americans in respect of industry
and efficiency.

"The Germans have achieved wonders during the
last decade/* said Mussolini.

"How do you account for the present collapse
of Germany?"

"Germany was beaten by a world-wide coalition."

"But do you not think that the happenings of the
last half century in Germany were indirect causes
of the present trouble?"

He hesitated a while, looked at me searchingly,
and then said, slowly and decisively:

"Everything that Bismarck achieved during the
thirty years of his rule was useful to Germany. It is
a matter of supreme importance to a statesman that
he should be in power for a long time. "What you
wrote the other day about Beethoven and Shakes-

160

FOREIGN LANDS

peare applies to political life as well, and Bismarck
had plenty of time."

"What do you think of German policy during
the first years after the war? Do you think that
Germany was right to accept the situation without
any attempt at resistance?"

"What else could she do? In view of the fierce
hatred of Germany which prevailed during those
years, and of the fact that the alliance against her
was still in being, any attempt to resist would have
had the most disastrous consequences. Rathenau,
whose acquaintance I made in the year 1922, was
one of the ablest statesmen Europe has had during
the last quarter of a century. As to what I thought
of Stresemann, I expressed my high opinion of him
at the time of his death. He succeeded in freeing the
Rhine five years earlier than the date fixed by the
treaty."

"Was he not the obverse of Mussolini?" I en-
quired.

Mussolini regarded me with astonishment and I
went on:

"He moved forward from nationalism to inter-
nationalism."

"But the situation of the two men was so differ-
ent," said he.

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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"Because the character of the two nations is so
different/' I rejoined. "The Fascists are fond of talk-
ing about the Prussian discipline of pre-war days,
and yet that was the time when Prussia had the
strongest Socialist party in the world/ 3

He smiled, knitted his brows, and assumed a rather
sly look, saying, "There is a good deal of Prussianism
in German Socialism. My impression has been that
that explains why German Socialists are so disci-
plined."

"You think, then, that Fascism could be exported
to Germany?"

"Nowhither," he answered. "It is a purely Italian
growth. Still, some of its ideas could be adapted to
German conditions: the organisation of occupations
in groups and the organisation of these groups in
relation to the State. In your country, the way to a
corporative system has already been opened up by
the establishment of large-scale organisations and
there is but one more step to take. In addition, you
could control both capital and labour."

"You said to me once," I rejoined, "that the Ital-
ians had been critical for too long and that now it
was time for them to learn to obey. The Germans,
on the other hand, have been obedient for several
centuries and it is surely time for them to become

162

FOREIGN LANDS

critical once more. That is why we would rather
have five hundred mediocrities in the Reichstag than
one outstanding leader. The Germans have a pas-
sion for obedience, so we don't want Fascism in our
land. Besides, the complete lack of leaders of your
sort shows that the Teople of Thinkers/ though it
can produce the great teachers of dictatorship
(Marx, Hegel, and Nietzsche) , cannot give birth
to a dictator. That is why the Germans never make
an effective revolution."

"But what about Luther?" asked Mussolini.

"Yes, he was an exception to the rule. He was
successful. All the same, in order to avoid using the
ominous word revolution we, somewhat shame-
facedly, call his work the Reformation. You re-
member that when, in the 'sixties, Napoleon III
asked Bismarck whether a revolution was to be ex-
pected in Prussia, Bismarck replied that in Prussia
only the king made revolutions."

Mussolini returned to the problem of dictator-
ship in a way I had not anticipated.

"Of all the forms of dictatorship," he said, "Ger-
many prefers the one which is exercised by a pow-
erful bureaucracy, a bureaucracy that is thor-
oughly well organised and lives somewhat apart
from the world. With you, moreover, dictatorship

163

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
is not embodied in a man, or even in a number of
men, on show in the shop windows. Sometimes you
have a dictatorship in the form of joint-stock com-
panies. Thus your dictatorships range from cartels
to a dictatorship of the civil servants. You have
Holstein on one side and Krupp or Thyssen on the
other."

"The world, looking askance at us/ 3 said I, "thinks
of us as the Two Germanys. You have sketched
one of them. The other is the Germany whose gift
to mankind was the two greatest thinkers of the
nineteenth century, Goethe and Nietzsche. Did you
yourself, during the war, lose touch with this sec-
ond Germany?"

"Never for a moment. That I cannot lose.**

164

HOME DEVELOPMENT

! we were flying across the Pontine Marshes, the
small unenclosed airplane descended to a level of
about three hundred feet and, in the gesture lan-
guage of aviators, the pilot drew my attention to
the ground beneath, which had already been drained.
Under Mussolini's regime, there is now being com-
pleted on the grand scale a work which two thou-
sand years ago the Romans and subsequently the
popes had vainly attempted. An area of hundreds
of square miles in which, up till now, no one had
been able to live, except for a few months in the
shooting season, when the hunters inhabiting the
surrounding hills spent a nomadic existence there,
has at length been rendered habitable, with the re-
sult that in ten years or so there will be a population
of many thousands in a region which has hitherto
been rendered deadly by malaria. All this country-
side was now spread beneath my eyes like a map.
I could see the parallel lines marking the new plough-
lands, could recognise the main canals and their

165

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

feeders, dug in order to drain the marsh waters away
into the sea.

A few days later I made a motor excursion
through the same district, accompanied by Musso-
lini and hundreds of Fascists; but this was a tumul-
tuous affair and was much less instructive than my
cursory view from the airplane.

I had already told him of my previous visit and
had brought with me the concluding part of
"Faust," in which the dying centenarian says:

"A morass stretches towards the mountains,
Poisoning all that has been wrested from the wild;
To make an end of this pestilential swamp
Would be a supreme achievement.
It would provide dwelling space for millions,
Not to live without risk, but in free activity/*

Since Mussolini always retains that feeling for
symbolical activity which I regard as characteristic
of men of outstanding intelligence, he was very
much struck by the parallelism with Faust and
slowly read the German verses aloud.

At length, when we came to a place where seventy
tractors were stationed in two rows to start in oppo-
site directions and plough the ancient soil for the

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first time, he called me to his side, waved his hand
at the machines, and said:

"There you have the centenarian Faust!"

"Each of those tractors costs less than a big gun,"
I answered drily.

"Costs less than firing a big gun!" said he, to cap
my criticism, and laughed.

This was the best moment of that excursion* On
a second excursion I watched him mounting the
outside steps of a small works office. He stood there
for some time in silence, reading a printed notice
posted on the wall, the wage scale of the masons. As
he did this, I could not but feel that his action was
symbolical of the tie between his youth as a mason
and his present position as a ruler.

"When, that same evening, we were once more
seated together in conversation on either side of the
great writing table, having returned from the clam-
our of the photographers in the Campagna to the
peace of this great hall, I improved the occasion by
referring to what I had seen that day.

"Do you remember how, in the t evening of his
life at St. Helena, Napoleon spoke of the most effec-
tive upshot of his career? He referred to dams and
canals, to harbours and roads, to factories and dwel-
ling places mentioning them all by name, a list

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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
that fills a whole page. The names of the battles he
had fought disappeared behind these great humani-
tarian achievements. Is it not true that things of
the same sort are what have given you the greatest
satisfaction? Have you not long had a desire for
such constructive work?"

"For decades," he answered gently.

"In the face of such an avowal," I said, "I am less
alarmed by the Fascist demand for more territory.
I have never been able to believe that you could
think the happiness of a nation depended upon the
extent of its domains. All the more, then, do I find
it difficult to understand why, in a comparatively
small and thickly populated country, you lay so
much stress upon the multiplication of births. I
should have thought that Malthusianism was more
necessary in Italy than almost anywhere else in the
world."

Mussolini suddenly flamed up in wrath. Never be-
fore or afterwards did I see him lose his self-com-
mand in this way. Speaking twice as fast as usual,
he flung his arguments at me like missiles.

"Malthus! Economically, Malthusianism is a
blunder, and morally it is a crime! A reduction in
population brings poverty in its train! When the
population of Italy was only sixteen millions, the

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country was poorer than it is to-day, when we have
forty- two million inhabitants. These two-and-f orty
millions are much better off than half their numbers
who lived under the papacy, under Venice, or under
Naples impoverished and uncultured as they
were! Thirty years ago I came to realise that in my
own home! Manufacturing industry needed edu-
cated workers and productivity has increased a
thousandfold!"

"The same everywhere," said I, "and not in
Italy alone. As regards the strength of a nation,
France, with her two-children system, has shown
what a country with a restricted population can do
when she must."

"France proves nothing!" he cried; the heat of
his rejoinder showing that my objection was one
he had often heard. "France would have been utterly
smashed had not half the world come to her help.
Besides, consider this. If in the year 1914, France had
had fifty-five million inhabitants instead of thirty-
five, Germany would never have declared war!"

"Such being your views views which I do not
share I can understand why in Italy the pro-
curing of abortion is treated as a crime, though in
Germany such an attitude has become obsolete."

Still white with anger, he thundered back:
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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"The Russians can do as they like in that respect,
for it does not matter to them whether their in-
crease in population be three millions a year or five
millions or only one. Still, not to have a rapid in-
crease in population implies a restriction of national
power. In this, we and the Russians are poles
asunder/*

"Here I am on the side of the Russians," I an-
swered. "Among them, women and men have an
equal standing in public life."

This remark only made matters worse. He an-
swered more stubbornly than ever:

"Woman must play a passive part. She is ana-
lytical, not synthetical. During all the centuries of
civilisation has there ever been a woman architect?
Ask her to build you a mere hut, not even a temple;
she cannot do it. She has no sense for architecture,
which is the synthesis of all the arts; that is a sym-
bol of her destiny. My notion of woman's role in, the
State is utterly opposed to feminism. Of course I
do not want women to be slaves, but if here in
Italy I proposed to give our women votes, they
would laugh me to scorn. As far as political life is
concerned, they do not count here. In England
there are three million more women than men, but
in Italy the numbers of the two sexes are the same.

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Do you know where the Anglo-Saxon countries are
likely to end? In a matriarchy!"

Since in this matter he was not open to argument,
I alluded to a point of detail.

"I think, however, that the Fascist State does
quite as much for the mother of an illegitimate child
as for any married woman?"

"We do as much for mothers as any country in
Europe. The mother of an illegitimate child is often
in far greater need than a married woman."

Turning from this contentious point on the posi-
tion of women to the position of labour in Italy
as compared with Russia, I asked him whether it
was true that in the Carta del Lavoro he had him-
self inserted a clause to the effect that private ini-
tiative was the most effective stimulus to produc-
tion.

"That is so," he answered, calming down. "But I
also insisted that when private initiative fails, the
State must intervene. The Carta del Lavoro lies
outside the range of capitalism."

"You have spoken of the 'Balilla* as your favourite
child. Is not this method of education a danger to
the family? And wherein lies the distinction be-
tween the Fascist system of education and the edu-
cation of children by the Soviets?"

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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"Here in Italy," lie answered, "we educate them
in accordance with the ideal of the nation, whereas
in Russia children are brought up in accordance
with the ideals of a class. Still, the ultimate aim is
identical. Both in Italy and in Russia the individual
is subordinated to the State. My aim is, by degrees,
by choice of the best specimens, to establish an
elite."

"If you want to do that," said I, "you must en-
roll the best energies of the nation in the teaching
profession. If I had to rule a State, the schoolteachers
would be the best paid of all the civil servants, for
they hold the future in their hands, and I should
want to attract the best intelligences into that pro-
fession."

"Our teachers," he answered, "are paid ten times
as much as when I was myself a teacher thirty years
ago."

"I have read that Pelizzi has written about the
dangers of obedience and that you disapproved of
his remarks."

"Only in this sense," he replied, "that children
and soldiers must understand what they are ordered
to do. A command must not be absurd. Those who
receive it must feel that it is reasonable. Always the
interpretation is the main thing, not the order it-

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self. There is inevitably something cold, something
corpselike about the law. Practice, on the other
hand, is a human affair, differentiated, full of fine
shades. Laws are only a part of human practice and
not the most important part."

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ROME AND THE CHURCH

BEFORE beginning to discuss the Church, I spoke
of a Roman cleric who had played a great part in the
negotiations before and after the reconciliation. The
difference in the conversational tone had been dis-
astrous. This venerable priest had behaved as if the
world knew nothing whatever about the difficulties
and dissensions between the two powers. He ignored
them almost completely in the past and wholly in the
present. He was the powerful but humble Jesuit
whom we know from Schiller's plays and from
French novels.

Returning to the question of the temporal power,
I began with Cavour's saying, ff libera chiesa in li-
bero stato" (a free Church in a free State), and
asked Mussolini whether he accepted the notion.

"Quite unrealisable with the Catholic Church,"
he retorted. "If you look closely into the phrase,
you will see that it has no meaning. There are only
two possibilities: complete separation of the two
powers, the State ignoring the Church; or else the

175

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

State joins hands with the Church for the control
of matters of common concern. Both the State and
the Church have to deal with the same materials,
human beings, the former as citizens, the latter as
believers. I have tried various ways. In the year 1923
I wanted to give the Popolari five seats in the gov-
ernment. Don Sturzo brought that scheme to
naught. He fancied that he would be able to play
with me the game he had played with Giolitti, so I
bundled him out, neck and crop."

This was the first time I had heard Mussolini use
so strong and vernacular an expression about one
of his enemies which made me suppose that he
must have been very much annoyed with Sturzo.

"But T^hy did you postpone the reconciliation
for another five years?" I asked.

"It was necessary," he said, "that we should have
plenty of time in which to clear up all disputed
questions, which were of an extremely delicate na-
ture. Not only that! When the headquarters of the
Church are entirely enclosed within the capital of
the State, there are geographical and topographical
difficulties as well. The capital of the State, and
within it a town which belongs to another power!
Forty-four hectares at least!"

"Father Ehrle, the German priest who is now a
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ROME AND THE CHURCH

cardinal, showed me his map of the Vatican State
in the year 1920. At that time he was out of favour
with Pope Benedict because he had published it dur-
ing the war. Do you know that in your negotiations
with the papacy you achieved something entirely
new in history?"

Mussolini looked at me inquiringly.

"Never before, you must admit," I continued,
"had two independent and absolute rulers living in
the same town conferred together for three years
without setting eyes on each other."

Laughing good-humouredly, he said:

"Well, I have visited the Pope now."

About this visit to the Vatican, gossip had been
rife in Rome. It was said that Mussolini had kneeled
and had kissed the Pope's hand. But, visiting him
after the reconciliation, I found him filled with
animus against the Pope and had doubted the ru-
mour. The matter had a human interest for me, so
I approached it from the flank, saying:

"I myself visited the last two popes and found
that the formalities they prescribed were entirely
different in the two cases. This made me wonder
whether a man with a proper pride who is not a
believer ought to comply with these formalities."

"In general," answered Mussolini, "I Mo as the
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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

Romans do/ That is to say, I accept the customs of
a country where I am being entertained. At the
Vatican, I was left to follow my own bent."

"Do you believe," I went on, "that a Catholic
statesman can get on better with the Church than
one who is not a believer?"

"You must distinguish in this matter between a
believer and one who is a practising Catholic. Be-
yond question power and harmony are promoted
for a statesman if he adheres to the religion of the
majority of his fellow countrymen. But active par-
ticipation in a ritual is a personal matter. For in-
stance, it is reported that the Minister of State who
expelled the Jesuits from Spain attends mass daily."

"In your youth," said I, "you wrote some very
fine things in the Nietzschean vein. For instance:
'When Rome passed beneath the sway of Jesus, the
dynasty of rulers, perhaps the only great dynasty
in history, fell.' On another occasion, you wrote of
Christianity that thanks to it, Europe had become
impotent of will and yet had not been made reaction-
ary enough to defend feudalism. Last of all, you said
that new, free, lonely, warlike spirits, equipped
with a certain noble perversion, had come to liber-
ate us from altruism."

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ROME AND THE CHURCH

"That last sentence was Nietzsche's, not mine,"
he interrupted.

"No/ 3 1 objected, "it was yours."

We argued vigorously as to the authorship of the
remark. Then he passed on to consider the problem
implicit therein to consider it undismayed and
with the most perfect frankness. Obviously there
was in him a conflict between the statesman and the
revolutionist, between the head of the government
now reconciled with the Church, on the one hand,
and the man's defiant spirit, on the other,

"My position in this matter is difficult," said he,
"for the historical outlook cannot be squared with
the religious one. The Romans were beati, forti.
Later they were deboli ed ignoranti. The last shall
be first. Slaves revolt. Of course Nietzsche was
right."

After a pause and an almost inaudible sigh, he
went on:

"But when I consider the affair as a whole, per-
haps the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
The general influence of Christianity was certainly
good. A progressive phase in the history of man-
kind. If Christianity had failed to make its way
into imperial Rome, it would never have become

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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

a widely diffused religion. I am firmly convinced
of this. Let me add that everything must have hap-
pened by the dispensation of Providence. First the
Roman Empire, then the birth of Jesus, Paul ship-
wrecked on the coast of Malta, and at length brought
to Rome. Thus, it was predetermined by that Provi-
dence which guides all."

I was contemplating a man who, for me, was at
the moment a new Mussolini. Certainly there was
no other place in the world in which he was so keenly
interested as in Rome and it seemed that he regarded
himself as a fragment of Roman history. The ex-
pression of his face indicated as much during the
utterance of those last sentences. I was careful, there-
fore, not to interrupt his reflections until he raised
his head, looked at me with a friendly smile, and
seemed ready for a new question.

"Goethe," said I, "and subsequently Mommsen,
spoke of the universal idea which has been incorpo-
rated in Rome/*

"Yes/* he said, speaking now in a different tone,
with more logic and less enthusiasm; "that is why
it would perhaps have been better for the Germans
if Arminius had been defeated at the battle in the
Teutoberg forest. Was it not Kipling who wrote-
that the nations which had not been trained under

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ROME AND THE CHURCH
the Roman rule were like boys who had never been
to school?"

"But to-day/* I rejoined, "you surely cannot think
it possible to make Rome once again the centre of
the world?"

"Centre of the world only in this sense, that his-
tory has thickened around it to a preponderant de-
gree. Jerusalem and Rome what other cities can
compare with these in that respect?"

"Apropos, listen to what I once heard a notable
man say" (I purposely, for the moment, concealed
the name of the speaker, wishing Mussolini to listen
to the epigram without prejudice) : 'It was Luther
who lost the Great War!* "

"Interesting. Who said that?"

"The late Pope, Benedict XV."

"Well, certainly he was a great pope," replied
Mussolini.

"At Christmastide I used to find the Roman
churches full," said I. "Until recently they were
packed in Russia likewise. But now, a decade later,
the churches of Russia are empty. Do you believe
that the Christian faith will endure?"

"When I look at Spain, I see that the position of
the faith is critical In Spain, too, the churches used
to be full to bursting. To-day religion persists but

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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

it is superficial rather than deep. All the same, we
have to recognise that the war and the world crisis
have aroused or strengthened religious sentiment in
certain temperaments. Individuals here and there,
even army officers, even a German prince, have now
become deeply religious."

"Recently you spoke with immense admiration
o Julius Cxsar, but placed Jesus above him. That
is, if I did not take you up wrongly?"

"Jesus was the greater," he answered; "Caesar
comes in the second place. Just think! To start a
movement which has lasted two thousand years,
which has four hundred million adherents, many of
them poets and philosophers! This is unparalleled.
And Rome is the centre whence the movement radi-
ated. Yet it is a very remarkable fact that the most
humane among the Roman emperors were the
fiercest persecutors of the Christians."

"Yesterday," I said, "when I was contemplating
the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the
Capitol, I recalled a saying of his which I last read
under remarkable circumstances, namely, inscribed
as a motto in Cecil Rhodes* villa near Capetown: "Do
not forget that you are a Roman; but bear in mind,
also, that you are an emperor. 9 "

182

PART FIVE

GENIUS AND CHARACTER

ACTION AND REFLECTION

HE fine rooms which were usually empty when
I passed through them on my way to talk with Mus-
solini were made lively this evening by the presence
of twenty or thirty men engaged in good-humoured
discussion, after the manner of bank directors in the
prosperous old days when, after a brief committee
meeting, they were about to sit down to an excel-
lent luncheon. These visitors had come to see the
chief about the foundation of a Citta Academica
in Rome and seemed to have been greatly pleased
by their reception.

When Mussolini made excuses for having had to
put me off for an hour, I told him what had passed
through my mind as I glanced at them on my way
to him. Certainly all who came to see him, whether
as individuals or as deputations, must bring their
whole ego to his writing table.

"Nevertheless," I continued, "you yourself al-
ways look so marvellously unperturbed. How on
earth do you manage to keep so fresh amid all the

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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
trifles that come to worry you, constructing, so to
say, a marriage out of a passion? Don't you find that
the confusion of detail tends to dim your first vision
of the State?"

Here I found him, a minute after the talk about
the Citta Academica, with a mind unstressed; to-
day, as on previous occasions, the sudden change
from the practical to the platonic seemed to invigor-
ate him, as if he had passed out of a room into the
open air.

"No doubt the danger you speak of is real
enough," he replied. "Daily practise can sterilise the
mind. To avoid this, a man must continually remain
in touch with the living and breathing nature of
the masses and of individuals. Then he will keep
his imaginative impetus alive and will escape the
barrenness of bureaucracy. Nothing can be more
soul-deadening than bureaucracy, from which all
administrations suffer. I try to avert the evil by
continually thinking of the human side of affairs,
of man with his needs and his duties, his weakness
and his greatness."

"When you look back upon those earlier visions
of yours, a dozen years in the past, do you find that
what you have achieved is conformable with what
you used to plan?"

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ACTION AND REFLECTION

"An interesting question," he said, and pondered
a while before he answered. "No/ 5 he continued, "I
do not find myself in the street I had expected to
enter. But I am still the same traveller as of old. If
I am on a new road, that is because history has willed
it. Yet I am the same individual as ever."

"Then experience always leads to modifications
in the original plan?"

"Of course! Human beings, the materials upon
which the statesman works, are living matter. That
is why he is engaged upon a task very different from
that of the sculptor, who works in marble or in
bronze. My material is changeable, complex, sub-
ject to the influence of the dead and also to the in-
fluence of women. The whole substance is so plastic
that inevitably the consequences of action will dif-
fer at times from what the doer had expected."

"Why do you speak of the influence of women?"
I inquired.

He never smiled when I tried out one of these
futile questions in the hope of "drawing" him. Our
previous talks had made me well acquainted with
his hostility to women playing any part in political
life.

"Women's influence is to me an unsolved prob-
lem. On the whole, I am of Weininger's way of

187

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

thinking, although he exaggerated towards the last.
I learned a great deal from Weininger's book/ 3

"It seems to me/* I said, "that, like many histori-
cal figures I have studied, there is too much of the
poet in you for you to act in decisive moments
otherwise than intuitively, to act on impulse, on in-
spiration/*

"You are right. The march on Rome was unques-
tionably an inspiration of that sort. At a meeting
in Milan, on October 16th, we decided to undertake
it. But the date for the march, October 28th, I chose
all of a sudden, for I felt that a single day's further
delay might ruin the whole affair. The march on
Rome was only possible on that day."

He was silent for a while, deep in his memories;
then, preferring, after his manner, to be exact rather
than emotional, he added, "Perhaps."

"I suppose, then," said I, "that you are both led
and disturbed by premonitions/*

"Yes, led and troubled as well. They are sub-
conscious in origin, these feelings, both bodily and
mental. In the summer, I sense the coming of
autumn. I have ominous f oreshadowings, too, now
and again; and there are many days when I feel
averse to beginning a new venture. On October
31, 1926, when I was in Bologna, the spiritual at-

18S

ACTION AND REFLECTION

mosphere seemed to me so oppressive that through-
out the day I was anticipating disaster. In the eve-
ning there was an attempt on my life."

"Why did you not at that time have special meas-
ures organised to protect yourself against such oc-
currences?"

"Because I am a thoroughgoing fatalist."

"If you were logical in this matter, you would
forbid the police to organise any kind of protective
measures in your behalf."

"Protective measures," he replied, "can only be
effective within limits. I always leave wide scope for
the unforeseen, be it good or be it bad."

"Even as regards your decisions in matters of
State?"

"There, above all. A law may have the very op-
posite results from those expected by the law-
maker."

"The real is intertwined with the purely imag-
inative in these matters," said I. "I infer that you
believe in talismans. All introspective persons make
their own superstitions."

"Oh, yes," he replied. "I have superstitions."

"I have been told that when you heard of Lord
Carnarvon's death, you promptly ridded yourself
of a mummy which had been presented to you, in

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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

the belief that this death was due to revenge taken
by the unseen powers for the violation of the Egyp-
tian tomb."

"In that case I was not actuated by superstition,"
said Mussolini. "People ought not to cart about dead
bodies in such a way. It is a profanation."

"You have written a very fine description of your
youth. I think it is the best work from your pen.
Strange, is it not, that the same is true of Trotsky?
When, in this connection, I recall the imaginative
writings of Napoleon and others, it seems to me to
confirm the view that poetic fire is an essential in-
gredient of the man of action if he is to be truly
great."

"First, last, and all the time," said Mussolini, "a
statesman needs imagination. Without it he will be
arid and will in the long run effect nothing. Nor
does he stand alone in this need. Without imaginative
feelings, without poesy as part of his make-up, no
one can achieve anything."

"But what now saves you from letting your im-
agination run away with you?"

"Experience."

"Unquestionably you are an artist in the use of
words. Nor can I think of Napoleon, for instance,
as having made a success of his career without this

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ACTION AND REFLECTION

art. Some of his manifestos and speeches won as
much for him as victories in the field/*

"For the ruler," said Mussolini, "the power of the
written or spoken word is of inestimable value. He
must always be able to suit the word to the occasion.
He must be impressive and vigorous when speaking
to the crowd; logical at a public meeting; familiar
when he is addressing a small group. Many politi-
cians make the mistake of always talking in the same
tone. Of course, when I am in the Senate I do not
use the same language as that which I regard as ap-
propriate for the open-air meeting/*

"I gather, then* that you believe in the kinship
between the poet and the statesman a kinship I
have myself so often detected when studying these
two types. Do you think it possible that the drama-
tist can pave the way for the statesman? Do you
believe that in general a playwright is the herald of
a revolution?"

"Beyond question," said Mussolini. "First as a
thinker and as a man with a richly developed imag-
ination, the poet is almost always a prophet as well,
'the mirror of the gigantic shadows which futurity
casts upon the present/ Dante is a signal instance of
this. He foreshadowed the liberation of the mind
which was then about to begin. But in one respect

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
I differ from you; a poet is not the herald of a specific
revolution. The course to be taken by a revolution
cannot be accurately predicted; its outlines are con-
tinually reshaping themselves. Thinkers and poets
are like stormy petrels; they feel that a storm is
brewing, but do not know from what quarter the
wind will blow or what changes it will induce. Take
the Encyclopaedists for example. They wanted the
enfranchisement of the subordinated classes but
they could not foresee the actual lines of develop-
ment. Down to the last, Mirabeau remained a royal-
ist. Even Danton had monarchical inclinations, and
was not, to begin with, an advocate of a republic.
Arthur Young, whose "Travels in France 9 were made
just before and during the first movements of the
Revolution, wrote that every one was in a mood of
expectation. He had talked with all and sundry, and
the impression he derived from these conversations
was the existence of a universal belief that something
important was about to happen, but that there was
no definite conception as to its nature."

"In the days when you yourself wrote books, had
you the contented feeling of the creator, or were
you merely animated with the resignation of the
writer and with the hope of being able to act at some
future date?"

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ACTION AND REFLECTION

'*Why do you speak of resignation?" he asked,
struck by the term.

"To begin with, I was discontented with being no
more than a writer. It took me a long time to become
reconciled with this passive role and to be able to
console myself with the thought of Byron, whose
poems some one spoke of as undelivered parliamen-
tary speeches."

He nodded his understanding and replied, "True
enough, but the remark does not apply to young
people. In youth, to write is a sort of mental train-
ing, whereby the pupil learns to contemplate things
in their manif oldedness. This is true even when what
is written subsequently encounters resistance in the
world of reality, either because it is unpractical or
because it is premature. At eighteen, every one
writes verses. In early youth, we are phrase slaves.
For a young man, a phrase is like a pretty woman
with whom he falls in love. At forty, one faces up
to the facts of life."

"What do you think of the books you wrote in
youth?"

" 'The History of the Cardinals' is fustian. It was
written with a political bias and intended for pub-
lication as a newspaper feuilleton. Political propa-
ganda!"

193

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"It is clear to me that the poetical side of your
nature has continued to influence you in your career
of action, persisting as a sort of analysis of your ego.
During the decisive days of October, 1922, you de-
scribe how the echo of the Royal Guards resounded
through the deserted streets of Milan."

With an eager gesture of assent, he said, "I have
always been aware of such a twofold strain of feel-
ing and I turn it to account in self-examination/ 5

"erhaps," I rejoined, "at different times you take
divergent views of your own actions? When Napo-
leon was First Consul, he said that he had risen to
power owing to the incompetence of the Directory
and that his only object had been to restore order.
But when he had become Emperor, he gave a very
different explanation."

"Of course," answered Mussolini. "When one has
reached a new position, one looks back upon the
road from a different angle." Then, with a shade of
rancour, he remarked, "For my part, certainly, it
was not my sole aim to establish order!"

"In that respect you differ from one who is purely
a poet. D'Annunzio, in an avowal which was ex-
clusively poetical, told me that his only reason for
going to Fiume was in order to act."

"You cannot regard that as a political standard,"
194

ACTION AND REFLECTION
said the Duce. "Politics, after all, are a means and
not an end."

"Nevertheless," I insisted, "in your early days you
wrote more than once: 'The upshot o the battle is
but a secondary matter. The struggle is its own re-
ward, even if one should be defeated/ That is the
language of the poet's fine frenzy, the speech of
youth. Do you no longer believe it?"

Mussolini, who had punctuated my words with
nods of assent, now set his jaw, as if determine4 not
to allow himself to be robbed of the ideals of his
youth, and said:

"Unquestionably I still believe it, heartily! You
touch the core of the Fascist philosophy. When, re-
cently, a Finnish thinker asked me to expound to
him the significance of Fascism in a single sentence,
I wrote: 'Life must not be taken easily!* "

"I am right, then, in thinking that you regard
your actions symbolically?"

"That is a matter of the form in which life shapes
itself. In the absence of symbolism, it would be a
casual matter, undiflferentiated."

"You would, then, approve one of Napoleon's
farewell sayings: 'What a ballad my life has been!' "

"Splendid!"

"Do you think that now, after such multifarious
195

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

experiences, you could describe men'better were you
once more to take up your pen?"

"Much better!" he replied emphatically. "But
you, how would you classify human beings?"

"Under two heads," I answered; "as active and
reflective."

He drew his chair up close to the table, laid his
arms on it, and said with a touch of irony, "I classify
them primarily into those whom I like and those
whom I dislike. On that point I form my opinions
promptly, by a study of their faces. But there are
numerous other categories: for instance, the opti-
mists, whom I further divide into a number of sub-
classes. Then there are the people with fine sympa-
thies, those who grasp reality with a vigorous
understanding that reminds one of the eagerness
with which a bee sucks honey from a flower. But
there are others who have to be crushed by truth
before they can begin to understand it. I have ex-
perienced as much myself. That is one of the ways
in which one comes to master reality."

Such decisive utterances often come from Mus-
solini as an afterthought. At these times he looks
at his auditor fixedly, smiles, and seems to be asking
whether all the enigmas of the universe have now
been solved. Purposely ignoring the hint of mock-

196

ACTION AND REFLECTION

ery in his demeanour, I resumed with the utmost
seriousness:

"But have you learned exclusively in the school of
hard facts? We were talking just now of the might
of poesy. When, in your box at the theatre, you
watch Mark Antony or Caesar on the stage, is it with
an indifferent smile or are you studying them with
profit?"

Turning half round in his chair, Mussolini picked
an open volume from the top of a pile of books lying
on a table behind him.

"I have just been reading 'Julius Caesar 5 ," he said,
pointing to a French translation of Shakespeare and
fluttering the leaves. "A great school for rulers! As
I read before you came in, I was thinking how
during his last days even Caesar became a phrase-
slave!"

"Are you referring to the historical Caesar or to
Shakespeare's?"

"I am afraid to the historical Caesar also," he said
thoughtfully. "Why did he not look at the list of
the conspirators when it was thrust into his hand?
Maybe he allowed himself to be killed, feeling that
he had reached the end of the tether. Anyhow, I
listen attentively at the theatre and draw compari-
sons with myself at this table. The fundamental

197

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

problems of power have always been the same; how
one rules and how one rules with the minimum of
friction."

"Do you take Caesar as an exemplar?"
"Not altogether," he answered, closing the vol-
ume and thrusting it aside. "But the virtues of classi-
cal Rome, the doings of the Romans of old, are al-
ways in my mind. They are a heritage which I try
to turn to good account. The matter I have to shape
is still the same; and outside there is still Rome."

He waved a hand towards the window, through
whose greenish windowpanes the lamplight from
the Piazza made its way into the room.

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PRIDE AND ACTION

LT is plain enough to me that pride is one of your
fundamental character traits. But what is pride?"

"Self-awareness," answered Mussolini.

tf f Stolz 9 in German, like 'pride' in English, has
two conflicting senses, a good one and a bad. The
English speak of 'proper pride,' but at the other end
of the scale the word shades off into 'arrogance.*
What does the Italian term *alterigicf mean?"

"'Arrogance,'" he answered; "pride of* the
wrong sort."

"I have never been able to understand," said I,
"how a man of exceptional capacity can be proud
of anything which he has not won by his own
powers; how, for instance, he can be proud of his
descent. Are you proud because in the thirteenth
century your ancestors in Bologna had a coat of
arms a fact which some one has dug up out of
the archives?"

His expression was disdainful as he rejoined: "Not
the least in the world! The only one of my fore-

199

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

fathers in whom I am interested is a certain Mus-
solini who lived in Venice, killed his wife because
she had been unfaithful, and then, before he fled
from the city, laid two Venetian scudi on her bosom,
to pay for her burial. Such is the character of the
people of the Romagna whence I spring. All their
folk songs are concerned with love tragedies."

"I am glad," I said, "that you have not yet become
a duke or anything of that sort. No doubt it is quite
untrue that you have designed yourself a coat of
arms?"

"All nonsense!" (He spoke in English.)
"Of what incident in your career are you proud?"
"That I was a good soldier," he replied unhesitat-
ingly. "I mean by this that I showed fortitude and
energy. Only when possessed of those qualities can
a man stand gun fire."

"In childhood," I went on, "your pride must have
been sorely wounded at times."

"It was bitter in the mouth," he answered. "At
school we youngsters were fed in three detachments.
I always had to sit in the lowest grade, amongst the
poorest. It no longer troubles me to recall that there
were ants in the bread given to the children of the
third grade but the mere fact that we were thus
graded at all still rankles."

200

PRIDE AND ACTION

"Yet your sorrows had a productive reaction!"

"Unquestionably! Such intolerable and unwar-
ranted degradations make one who suffers them a
revolutionist/*

"If such feelings of humiliation are to become
nation-wide/* I said, "only he should voice them
who takes over responsibility. During a speech in
the Senate, in the year 1923 or 1924, you spoke feel-
ingly about the matter, while accepting entire re-
sponsibility. "What you said reads like but you
will not believe me/*

"Reads like what? 5 '

"Like a speech of Lassalle*s when he was defend-
ing himself in court. Moreover, like Lassalle, you
quoted Heraclitus/*

"I admire Lassalle/* said Mussolini. "He was a man
of first-class intelligence and endowed with far more
imagination than Marx. That was why his vision
of the days to come was far less catastrophic than
that of Marx. Moreover, the final disaster, the duel
in which he lost his life because of his passion for
the beautiful Helene von Donnige, was but another
proof of the vividness of his imagination/*

"He is discredited for the Russians, nowadays,
since new documents have come to light showing
his relations with Bismarck. I dealt with that matter

201

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

of Bismarck and Lassalle a good while back in a
drama that was played on the German boards. But
let me return to the matter of pride. I have been
told that at the age of twenty you were arrested
by the police in Zurich and subjected to anthropo-
metrical examination."

"In Berne."

"Is it true that you were so angry that you ex-
claimed in a fury: 'The day of veAgeance will
come! 9 "

"Yes, it is true," he replied. "This contumelious
treatment struck sledge-hammer blows which
were more useful to me than my adversaries sup-
posed!"

"Another anecdote I have heard relating to that
period was that when an Italian made you a present
of five lire you gave him an Arabian knife in re-
turn."

"Yes," he said, "that happened in Yverdon a
jackknife as long as this." (He indicated the length
on his forearm.) "I should have hated the man if
he had not accepted my gift in return for his
money."

"Among the many tales told of you, that one
pleases me best," said I. "All the more do I find it
hard to understand your theories or your feelings

202

PRIDE AND ACTION
when you transfer your personal honour to a com-
munity and when you speak o patriotism as a vir-

tue."

He looked at me with surprise and inquired,
"Why shouldn't I?"

"Because it is the cheapest of phrases, one with
which any one can deck himself out. Samuel John-
son, the savage- tongued Englishman, said that patri-
otism was the last refuge of a scoundrel."

"You, assuredly, should not forget that every na-
tion has a history. All the people that have a history
have an honour peculiar to themselves. It is their
heritage from their forefathers which justifies their
existence. A nation that has produced Shakespeare,
Goethe, or Pascal, one which has given Dante,
Petrarch, Ariosto, to the world, has risen above the
level of a nomadic tribe. For me, the honour of the
nations consists in the contribution they have
severally made to human civilization."

"But do you think, then," I asked, "that this hon-
our of which you speak ought to be defended by
force of arms? Because Goethe, a citizen of the
world, who loathed war, enriched the human race,
is it needful that a million of young men should be
destroyed by poison gas?"

"Not all affronts are equally gross," he rejoined.
203

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"Besides, a great deal depends upon who utters an
insult a journalist or a responsible statesman/*

"You consider, apparently, that I am to regard as
a virtue this primitive feeling, love of country,
which is as natural as one's love for one's parents?"

"To begin with," answered Mussolini, "patriot-
ism is no more than a feeling. Sacrifice makes it a
virtue. The virtue is greater in proportion to the
magnitude of the sacrifice."

"But the danger is," I countered, "that each na-
tion tends, when feeling grows hot, to make a parade
of its 'honour/ The world suffered the consequences
in the case of German national arrogance, which
had been artificially stimulated for a generation, un-
til Europe in general lost its temper."

"That was Germany's own affair," said Mussolini,
drawing a line on the table with his finger. "If
national feeling had become inflated among the
Germans, here in Italy, on the other hand, there was
too little of it. I have never spoken of the Italians
as the salt of the earth but have merely insisted that
we need as much light and space as other nations."

"But suppose that, one fine day, the people, from
excess of enthusiasm, take the bit between their
teeth?"

He paused before answering, looked at me criti-
204

PRIDE AND ACTION
cally, and then said, "That depends upon the au-
thority of the leader/*

"Three years ago you created much alarm in Eu-
rope by a succession of bellicose speeches."

"We had been greatly irritated. It was necessary
for me to find out how far the nation would follow
me in case of need. What you heard elsewhere in
Europe was but the echo/*

"There were counter-echoes as well/' said I. "It
was greatly to Briand's credit that he made no an-
swer! Even two years after the events, when I spoke
to him about those weeks, he was still greatly
troubled in mind/*

Mussolini pays keen attention when he hears
something new to him. One notices that he is storing
the phrases in his memory. Now, without turning a
hair, he said:

"Briand was not one of Italy's enemies/'

"Such impetuousness,*' said I, "with which you
have at times alarmed Europe, contrasts strongly
with the forbearance I have noticed in you on other
occasions."

Perceiving that I wished to steer the conversa-
sation off the rocks, he changed his tone and attitude,
saying:

"Thirty years ago, when I was a schoolmaster, I
205

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

gave out as subject for an essay: "Slow and steady
wins the race/ This pleased my chief. At about the
same date I wrote my first newspaper article (no,
it was my second) , and it was entitled: 'The Virtue
of Patience/ The need for patience had already be-
come plain to me. In truth, it is my way to prepare
things long in advance. We are still in the beginning
of April and I am already preparing my speech for
the October festival."

"But there are occasions when no preparation is
possible. For instance, the Corfu affair."

"The two techniques interlock. Patience and
preparation, swift execution. The March on Rome
could not have succeeded had it not been swift.
When all the world believed that there would be
trouble in Rome or in Florence, disturbances broke
out in Pisa. That October evening, to hoodwink the
world, I went to the theatre in Milan. They were
playing Molnar's 'The Swan/ My proclamation had
been ready since the 16th. I had given it to Chiavo-
lini, for I regarded him as the most reticent of my
associates. If the police had raided my house, I should
have been arrested."

"Why do you speak of your enterprise as unex-
ampled in history?"

"In Italian history," he amended. "If you want
206

PRIDE AND ACTION
to find a precedent for mobilising Italy in order to
march on Rome, you must go back centuries."

"Suppose that one of your four generals, who,
after all, had sworn fealty to the King, had changed
his mind and opposed your march, what would you
have done?"

"We should have fought!"

"What if you had failed?"

"We had made no plans for the event of failure.
It was impossible. How could I have acted if I had
not regarded failure as impossible?"

The two last answers were abrupt, incisive, hostile
the hostility being directed, not against me, but
against a sceptical world which seemed to voice it-
self in my question. He spoke like a general who is
rejuvenated by the memory of his most signal vic-
tory. I chose my next question swiftly, wishing to
hear the same tone once more.

"But previously, during the year of disappoint-
ment in which you were defeated in the elections,
did it never enter your head that the whole affair
might collapse?"

"Never!" he exclaimed, as crisply as before. At
such moments one seems near to understanding the
tone and attitude of the man of indomitable will
and also the intimate reasons for his success. Turn-

207

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

ing over in my mind the oft-discussed problem of
character and circumstances, I said:

"To my own thinking, you have let circumstances
drive you forward but never allowed them to hinder
you. In my studies of history, I have only found this
matter decisive in so far as it determines a trend in
youth. If Bismarck or Cavour had sprung from the
people, they would have hoisted the red flag with
the same fervour as yourself."

"Character and circumstances interact on each
other. Neither can be fully effective without the
other. Furthermore, good fortune favours the effi-
cient."

"If you have always enjoyed this self-confidence,
let me ask you what, pragmatically speaking, you
have learned during these ten years of rule."

He looked me full in the face, almost gratefully
as it seemed an unusual expression with him. The
fact is that, though Mussolini for the most part pre-
fers to let his thoughts go unwatched, there are rare
moments when (like all lonely thinkers) he delights
in the luxury of being fully understood. After a
short silence he resumed:

"During the decade you speak of," he said, "I
have developed. It has become ever more plain to me
that action is of primary importance. This even

208

PRIDE AND ACTION
when it is a blunder. Negativism, quietism, motion-
lessness, is a curse, I advocate movement. I am a
wanderer."

"But in these wanderings of yours, is your move-
ment undulating, now up, now down, then up
again?" I asked. "Or is it, rather, like the ascent of
one of the Alps, when a wider and ever wider pros-
pect opens to the climber?"

"Yes," he said, "that is it. Climbing an Alp!"

209

ART

nri
JL O my mind," said Mussolini, "architecture is

the greatest of all the arts, for it is an epitome of
all the others."

"Extremely Roman," I interjected.

"I, likewise, am Roman above all. Greeks have
only attracted me as far as philosophy is concerned
or, perhaps, I should add drama as well. I have al-
ways been very much influenced by the drama. In
my youth I was extremely fond of Schiller's *Wil-
helm Tell' and wrote upon the subject. Of course
I tried my hand at writing plays myself but none
of them were finished. I began a play which was to
be called 'The Unlit Lamp/ It was to be a social
drama a la Zola, describing the fate of an impover-
ished blind child. In another of my attempts, 'The
Struggle of the Motors,' a manufacturing secret was
stolen and, through the instrumentality of this mo-
tif, the struggle of labour against capital was to be
symbolised."

211

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"Are you sorry or are you glad that these plays
of yours were never finished?"

"Substantially they were writings for the ar-
rangement and the development of my own ideas.
The sketching of them was much more important
to me than the getting them finished and pro-
duced."

"Nowadays, it would seem, you make sketches of
plays for others to elaborate."

"You are referring to the Napoleon drama? Let
me tell you how that came about. Having read your
'Napoleon,* I sent for Faranzo and said to him, *If
no one has as yet made the proceedings at the Champ
de Mai in the spring of 1815 the theme of a play,
a great chance has been missed/ Thereupon I
drafted a scenario. After reading a book on Cavour,
I did the same thing in the case of the tragedy of
Villafranca. The general view has been that this
drama keeps too close to history to be regarded as
imaginative writing."

"I know the play," said I. "When, ten years ago,
my Bismarck play was staged in Germany, I was torn
to pieces by the critics, but the drama had a run of
more than a thousand nights, for the public was
eager to learn. Apropos, I am surprised you have not
made more use of the cinema for propaganda pur-

212

ART

poses. The Fascist film which has been shown abroad
is a worthless affair."

"The Russians set us a good example there/* an-
swered Mussolini. "Soon we shall have more money
to spare for the cinemas. To-day the film is the
strongest available weapon."

Turning to the question of literature I said, "I
am told that thirty years ago you were studying
German literature."

"For practice in German I read Klopstock's *Mes-
sias/ It was the most tedious work I ever struck!"

""Why on earth did you choose 'Messias,' which
since Klopstock's days, no German has ever read
from beginning to end?"

"Oh, that was not the only mistake I made," he
replied with a smile. "Influenced by Gomperz, I
drafted a book on philosophy. All these early at-
tempts have been committed to the flames, though
I was rather too precipitate in burning a monograph
upon the origins of Christianity, which I think may
have been. pretty good."

"We have better writers in Germany than Gom-
perz and Klopstock! Have you read much of
Goethe?"

"Not very much; but what I have read of his, I
have studied thoroughly. Above all Taust' both

213

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
parts. Heine, too, of whom I am extremely fond;
and Platen, on whom I have written. Among
D'Annunzio's plays, the two I like best are 'La figlia
del Joris 5 and 'La Fiacola sotto il moggio. 5 I am a
great admirer of Shaw, but sometimes find his f reak-
ishness annoying. Pirandello writes Fascist plays
without meaning to do so! He shows that the world
is what we wish to make it, that it is our creation."

"You still read a great deal, then? Do you make
notes on what you read?"

"I read all sorts of things," he said. "Often I make
a note when I come across something good."

From a drawer in the great writing table he took
out a diary bound in red leather and showed me his
daily record, sometimes half a page and sometimes
a page. He had, so he told me, begun to write this
in Rome nearly ten years before. Turning the pages
of the manuscript volume, he read me some of the
entries from recent weeks:

"Finished the book on Robespierre and the Ter-
ror. . . . Finished Poincare's book on Verdun. He
criticises the Italians [there followed notes concern-
ing the behaviour of some of the Italian regi-
ments]. . . . Began a book upon Napoleon as jour-
nalist. . . . Delighted with the Hungarian march
in Berlioz* 'Faust*. . . . It is an error to suppose that

214

ART

deflation is a cause of the crisis, for it is only a conse-
quence. The cause of the crisis is the hoarding of
money. The capitalists are to blame for this, not the
government. . . . Briand is dead. . . . He was not
hostile to Italy. His death took place at the time
when official France wanted to annul his policy of
an understanding with us. Thus he outlived that pol-
icy by a year. A talented man, full of ideas, but
Poincare is right in regarding him as a bohemien.
. . . Read Siegfried's book upon the crisis in Eng-
land. On page 195 he says that England is like a ship
anchored in European waters but always ready to
sail away. . . . The Bank of St. George, founded in
Genoa about 1200 A.D., was the first joint-stock
company in the world."

When he had closed the diary and laid it aside, I
returned to the question of his chief models in litera-
ture and asked him whether he had read much Dante.

"Again and again; always, in fact. He was the
first writer to give me a vision of greatness; and at
the same time he showed me the heights to which
poetry can attain," By a sudden transition, turning
to more practical matters, he said genially, "I feel
myself akin to Dante, owing to his partisanship, his
irreconcilability. He would not even forgive his
enemies when he met them in hell!"

215

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

There was the familiar forward thrust of his ob-
stinate jaw, and he seemed to be thinking of certain
personal experiences.

"You remind me of Bismarck," I remarked. "He
once said, *I didn't get a wink of sleep all night. I
was hating all the time!* "

Mussolini grinned and I went on, waving my
hand towards the window that gave on the Piazza,
"But down below there, once upon a time, was an-
other Roman who actually forgot the names of his
enemies!"

"Julius Caesar," said Mussolini, in the thrilling
tones I had heard him use more than once when ut-
tering this name. "The greatest man that ever lived.
They wanted to bring him the head of his enemy
Pompey, but Caesar gave Pompey an imposing fu-
neral. Yes, I have a tremendous admiration for
Caesar. But still," he went on grimly, "I myself be-
long rather to the class of the Bismarcks."

To divert him from this rancorous mood, I pro-
ceeded to quote what Bismarck had once said about
music a notable utterance. Music, declared the
great Prussian statesman, aroused in him feelings of
two different kinds: sometimes bellicose, sometimes
idyllic.

"Same here," he answered.
216

ART

"Do you still play the violin?" I inquired.

"Not for the last two years. At first it is refresh-
ing but after a while it induces nervous exhaustion.
If I play for half an hour, it soothes me, but in an
hour I get excited and tired. It's like a poisonous
drug, which may be useful in very small doses and
is deadly in large ones. Friends and admirers have
given me some very fine violins, but I have passed
them on to young fellows who have talent and no
money."

"To a man of strong will," said I, "Wagner is
a poison and not even an agreeable one. I would
venture to wager that you are an admirer of Bee-
thoven."

"I can't stand "Parsifal*; but I am fond of the
third act of Tristan*; and also of the earlier, more
melodious works of Wagner 'Tannhauser' and
'Lohengrin/ For us moderns, Beethoven still remains
the greatest of all composers, especially as author of
the Sixth Symphony, the Ninth Symphony, and the
last of his quartettes. Still, Palestrina and his school
are more congenial to me, although they are not in
the same street with Beethoven."

"Certainly no German would agree with you
about Palestrina," I said. "How do you account for
the fact that the most supra-national, the most un-

217

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

material of all the arts, should nevertheless have na-
tionalist affiliations?"

"What could be more natural?" he rejoined. "If
you were to put me in a darkened room where I
could hear music being played close at hand, I
would wager my ability to distinguish between Ger-
man, French, Italian, and Russian music. The
language of music is international but its essential
nature is purely national. Music seems to me the pro-
foundest means of expression for any race of man.
This applies to executants as well as to composers.
If we Italians play Verdi better than do Frenchmen
or Germans, it is because we have Verdi in our blood.
You should hear how Toscanini, the greatest con-
ductor in the world to-day, interpets him."

"The very mention of the man is an argument
against what you have just been saying," I replied
"at any rate, as far as the executants are con-
cerned. You could not find any German to conduct
Beethoven so well as this remarkable Italian; and
yet I have heard Verdi better produced in Germany
than anywhere in Italy. Nietzsche, moreover,
Nietzsche whom the pan-Germans pervert into a
Blond Beast, understood 'Carmen* better than any
Frenchman; and Wagner, the least German of all

218

ART

our great composers, has to-day a far greater vogue
abroad than within the German frontiers."

"You are only right in respect of exceptions," said
Mussolini. "Really Wagner did not write Teutonic
music. Nietzsche, again, who was of Polish extrac-
tion, was utterly un-German, was continually mak-
ing fun of Prussia and the new empire, became pro-
fessor of classical literature in Basle, and was a
devotee of the culture of the Latin races. But, let me
repeat, both these men were exceptions. Speaking
generally, you are mistaken."

"It seems to me," said I, "that a nation has to pay
for remarkable musical endowments. I regard the
Germans as the most musical nation in the world and
also as the least competent of all in political matters;
whereas the British, who have so much less music in
their souls, are the most distinguished for political
talent."

He regarded me with a satirical smile, but would

not take up the twofold challenge, except in so far

as to say, with courteous dissent:

"I have my doubts as to both your superlatives."

It was time to break new ground, so I asked him:

"Since you have been a penman (writing both

serious studies and works of imagination) , and since

219

TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

you have practised the art of music, do you think
you might return to either or both of these fields if,
by some turn of events, leisure were forced on you
once more?"

He shook his head, saying, "I should never go
back to the contemplative life. I am a western of the
westerns. Like your own Faust I say, not "In the be-
ginning was the word/ but 'In the beginning was
the deed! 3 "

(He quoted Faust in German: (r lm Anfang war
die Tat!")

Wishing to pin him to an authoritative utterance,
I ventured to ask once more:

"Do you, in truth, never feel any desire to rest
from your present labours?"

"No," he answered decisively, with a look which
put a seal on the utterance.

220

LONELINESS AND DESTINY

_N my study of great careers/* I began, "I have
always made it my business to note in one particular
respect the behaviour of men who have left the
circle in which they grew up how they have com-
ported themselves as between their relationship to
their old friends, on the one hand, and the loneli-
ness which their new position has forced upon them,
on the other. Herein there is disclosed the character
or part of it. What does the man do in such a
conflict between human kindliness and authority?
Does he not naturally tend to pass from the tropics
to the North Pole? Tell me what happens when one
of your old comrades enters this hall! How do you
make shift without reopening one of the old discus-
sions? You once wrote (and it is a fine saying) : *We
are strong because we have no friends/ "

Mussolini made no movement, no gesture, as he
sat opposite me; but there was something unusual,
something almost childlike in his expression which
disclosed to me that the topic I had mooted had

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stirred him profoundly. When at length he an-
swered, it was plain to me that his words were colder
than his feelings and that he was not disclosing all
his sentiments or all his thoughts.

"I cannot have any friends. I have no friends.
First of all, because of my temperament; secondly,
because of my view of human beings. That is why
I avoid both intimacy and discussion. If an old
friend comes to see me, the interview is distressing
to us both and does not last long. Only from a dis-
tance do I follow the careers of my former com-
rades."

"What happens when those who have been friends
become foes and when such a one calumniates you?"
I asked, remembering my personal experiences.
"Which among your old friends have remained
most faithful to you? Are there any former friends
whose onslaughts are still a distress to you?"

He remained unmoved.

"If those who were once my friends have become
my enemies, what concerns me to know is whether
they are my enemies in public life; if so, I fight them.
Otherwise, they do not interest me. When some for-
mer collaborators attacked me in the press, declar-
ing that I had embezzled money intended for Fiume,
this certainly intensified my misanthropy. The most

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loyal of my friends are enshrined in my heart but
in general they keep their distance. Precisely because
they are loyal! They are persons who do not seek
profit or advancement and only on rare occasions
do they visit me here just for a moment."

"Would you trust your life to these or to any one
else?" I asked. "You have made some of them life
members of the Gran Consiglio."

"Three, and only for three years," he said
drily.

"Such being now your position, I am led to ask
when you felt yourself most lonely. Was it in youth,
as in D'Annunzio's case; or when you were out-
wardly in close contact with your party comrades;
or to-day?"

"To-day," -he answered without a moment's hesi-
tation. "But still," he went on, after a pause, "even
in earlier times no one exerted any influence upon
me. Fundamentally I have always been alone. Be-
sides, to-day, though not in prison, I am all the more
a prisoner/*

"How can you say that?" I inquired with con-
siderable heat. "No one in the world has less ground
for making the statement!"

"Why?" he asked, his attention riveted by my
excitement,

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"Because there is no one in the world who can
act more freely than you!" I rejoined.

He made a conciliatory gesture and replied:

"Please don't think that I am inclined to quarrel
with my fate. Still, to a degree I stand by what I
said just now. Contact with ordinary human affairs,
an impromptu life amid the crowd to me, in my
position, these things are forbidden."

"You have only to go out for a walk!"

"I should have to wear a mask," he answered,
"Once when unmasked I made my way along
the Via Tritone, I was speedily surrounded by a mob
of three hundred persons, so that I could not ad-
vance a step. Still, I do not find my solitude irk-
some."

"If loneliness is agreeable to you," said I, "how
do you find it possible to put up with the multitude
of faces you have to look at here day after day?"

"In this way," he replied; "I merely see in them
what they say to me. I do not let them come into
contact with my inmost being. I am no more moved
by them than by this table and these papers that lie
on it. Among them all, I preserve my loneliness un-
touched."

"In that case," said I, "are you not afraid of los-
ing your mental balance? Do you not recall how the

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LONELINESS AND DESTINY

reigning Caesar would, while enjoying a triumph
in the Forum, have with him in his chariot a slave
whose business it was to remind him continually of
the nullity of all things?"

"Of course I remember. The young fellow had
to keep the emperor in mind of the fact that he was
a man and not a god. But nowadays that sort of
thing is needless. For my part, at any rate, I have
never had any inclination to fancy myself a god but
have always been keenly aware that I am a mortal
man, with all the weaknesses and passions proper to
mortality/*

He spoke with obvious emotion and then went on
in a calmer tone:

"You are perpetually hinting at the danger that
may result from the lack of an opposition. This
danger would be actual if we lived in quiet times.
But to-day the opposition is embodied in the prob-
lems that have to be solved, in the moral and eco-
nomic problems that perpetually press for solu-
tion. These suffice to prevent a ruler from going to
sleep! Furthermore, I create an opposition within
myself!"

"I seem to be listening to Lord Byron," said I.

"I often read both Byron and Leopardi. Then,
when I have had enough of human beings, I go for

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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
a voyage. If I could do whatever I liked, I should
always be at sea. When that is impossible, I content
myself with animals. Their mental life approximates
that of man and yet they don't want to get any-
thing out of him: horses, dogs, and my favourite,
the cat. Or else I watch wild animals. They embody
the elemental forces of nature!"

This avowal seemed to me so misanthropical that
I asked Mussolini whether he thought a ruler needed
to be inspired with contempt for mankind rather
than with kindly feelings.

"On the contrary," he said with emphasis. "One
needs ninety-nine per cent, of kindliness and only
one per cent, of contempt."

The statement, from him, surprised me, and to
make sure that I was not misunderstanding him, I
asked him once more: "You really think, then, that
your fellow human beings deserve sympathy rather
than contempt?"

He regarded me with the inscrutable expression
which is so common to him and said softly:

"More sympathy, more compassion; much more
compassion."

This utterance reminded me that, when reading
Mussolini's speeches, I had more than once been
surprised by what seemed to me a parade of altruism.

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LONELINESS AND DESTINY

Why should he, the condottiere, refer with so much
insistence to the interests of the community? I was
led to ask him:

"Again and again, in exceedingly well-turned
phrases, you have declared an increase of your own
personality to be your aim in life, saying, 'I want
to make my existence a masterpiece,' or, "I want to
make my life dramatically effective.' Sometimes you
have quoted Nietzsche's motto, 'Live dangerously!'
How, then, can a man with so proud a nature write:
c My chief aim is to promote the public interest'?"
Is there not a contradiction here?"

He was unmoved,

"I see no contradiction," he replied. "It is per-
fectly logical. The interest of the community is a
dramatic affair. By serving it, therefore, I multiply
my own life."

I was taken aback and could find no effective
repartee, but I quoted to him his own words: " *I
have always had an altruistic outlook on life!' "

"Unquestionably," said he, "No one can cut him-
self adrift from mankind. There you have some-
thing concrete the humanity of the race from
whose loins I sprang/'

"The Latin race," I interrupted; "that includes
the French."

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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI

"I have already declared, in the course of one of
these conversations, that there is no such thing as a
pure race! The belief that there is, is an illusion of
the mind, a feeling. But does it exist any the less
for that?"

"If so/* said I, "a man could choose a race for him-
self."

"Certainly."

"Well, I have chosen the Mediterranean, and here
I have a formidable ally in Nietzsche."

The name aroused an association in his mind and,
speaking in German, he quoted the proudest of
Nietzsche's utterances: "Do I seem to strive for hap-
piness? I strive on behalf of my work!"

I pointed out that this idea really derived from
Goethe and I asked him whether he shared Goethe's
notion that character is moulded by the blows of
fate.

He nodded assent: "It is to the crises I have had
to pass through and to the difficulties I have had to
surmount that I owe what I am. Because of that, one
must always stake one's all."

"Therewith you run the risk of destroying your-
self and your work by taking needless risks."

"Life has its price," he answered confidently,
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LONELINESS AND DESTINY
"You cannot live without risk. This very day I went
into battle once more."

"If you were consistent in that view, you would
not seek to protect yourself," I said.

"I don't," he rejoined.

"What!" I exclaimed. "Do you not recognise
that again and again some one of your enemies risks
his own life in the hope of depriving you of yours?"

"Oh, I understand what you are driving at. I
know, too, the rumours that are current. It is said
that I am watched over by a thousand policemen
and that every night I sleep in some new place. Yet
in actual fact, I sleep night after night in the Villa
Torlonia and I drive or ride whenever and whither-
soever fancy seizes me. If I were to be continually
thinking of my own safety, I should feel humili-
ated."

"Tell me," I said in conclusion, "what part does
the desire for fame play in your life? Is not that
desire for fame the strongest motive for a ruler? Is
not fame the only way of escaping death? Has not
fame been your goal since you were a boy? Has not
all your work been animated by the desire for fame?"

Mussolini was imperturbable.

"Fame did not loom before me in boyhood," he
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TALKS WITH MUSSOLINI
said; tc and I do not agree with you that the desire
for fame is the strongest of motives. In this respect
you are right, that it is some consolation to feel that
one will not wholly die. Never has my work been
exclusively guided by the wish for fame. Immor-
tality is the hall mark of fame." He made a sweeping
gesture towards a remote and uncontrollable future,
adding, "But that comes afterwards."

END